


Project P.I.T.C.H.

by Shaish



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood Magic, Chains, Corporeal Shenanigans, Death, Demon AU, Floaty moody chains, Gen, Gore, Grief, Guilt, Halloween, Loss, Lots of chains, M/M, Magic, PTSD, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, Putting like four of these just to be safe, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rituals, Spooky, Summoning, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Trauma, Violence, Well Practiced Emotion Avoidance Techniques, alternate personalities, demon Winter Soldier, non-corporeal shenanigans, spoop, spoopy, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-01-27 14:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: “What is your desire…” Bucky’s voice croaks, rough and unused and unlike anything Steve’s ever heard come out of his throat. Bucky’s head slowly lifts and he looks up, black pupils filling his eyes’ centers before thinning to cat-like slits. His dark eyebrows lower and he almost snarls, canines and the teeth either side of them, above and below, sharp like a dog’s, “Steven Grant Rogers.”Steve stares at him, mind blank.





	1. Fade to black

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't get this finished in time for Halloween so here's the first chapter, my meager offering for the day. <3

_1943_

“ _Again! Do it again! Revive him!_ ”

There’s a jolt, somewhere far away, electricity racing across numb skin that feels even farther away than the voices. He floats, drifts, higher and higher up-

“ _Again! Do it aga-_ ”

Straight into the pitch void above his head.

\-----

“ _Bucky…”_

_“Bucky!?”_

_“ **Bucky!**_ ”

Bucky’s eyes snap open with a gasp and Steve jolts, grips his shoulders tighter. “Buck! Can you hear me? _Buck!_ ” Bucky’s wide grey eyes swivel around and then land on his, worryingly unseeing for five seconds, ten, fifteen-

“Steve?” Bucky gasps out, pulling in another huge breath and holding it.

“Buck!” Steve lets out, relieved, “Yeah, it’s me. It’s Steve.” The factory shudders around them, dust crumbling down from the spider cracks in the ceiling. “We need to go,” Steve says, helping Bucky sit up, then onto his feet, rushing to wind an arm around his waist when his knees buckle, wobbly as a newborn faun’s. Steve steers him out of the room and down the hall, then out into the factory proper.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky sighs, eyes going unseeing on his face again before they snap to the side at another explosion, throwing an arm up to shield his eyes from the inferno. The fire lights up the lower half of his face oranges and reds, warmer than the pale sheet washed a sickly green under the lights Steve saw just seconds ago.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here, Buck,” Steve says, nearly carrying him across the shaky catwalks, metal ringing under their feet and towers collapsing further below, shaking the whole factory.

\-----

_2014_

“And then the rest is history, for the most part,” Steve explains distractedly, pouring over the Winter Soldier file in the passenger seat. 

He’s been at it for the past half hour, since they got in the rental car. It still smells like a rental, that cleaner-shampoo and air freshener smell. Sam had asked about cracking open the windows, but Steve’s too worried about pages flying out of the file in his lap, hoarded between his gentle hands like damaged gold, so they compromised with the air conditioner. Sam’s not actually sure it’s doing more than pushing that cleaner-smell around the car. 

“I found Bucky in the factory white as a sheet. We got out of the factory, went back to base, put the Commandos together, and then...well,” Steve finishes.

“I got that part,” Sam replies, tilting his head towards Steve but keeping his eyes on the road, “What I don’t get is the…” he trails off.

_Barnes stares at them over the mask covering the lower half of his face, eyes unnaturally blue- or green, not like the sky or the water._

_It was like chlorine, pool water_ , Sam thinks, a bright, blue-green, not any color found in people.

 _The chains around Barnes’ torso don’t make a sound when Barnes moves. The ends seem to almost drift on the air and then he’s running at them, shoving Steve over the side of the helicarrier_ -

Steve glances over and up from the files, shifting a little uneasily where he’s hunched over in the passenger seat. “I don’t know what all that was,” he says quieter, eyes dragging forward, then down to the file, “Bucky wasn’t... _I don’t know what that was_.”

Barnes was like a black wraith, wreathed in silent chains with unnatural eyes, as strong as Steve, maybe more so. Sam doesn’t have too much to compare it to, just that Barnes tore his carbon fiber wing off like it was made of paper, then kicked him over the edge of the helicarrer like he was a kid’s ball in the way of his hurried stroll down a sidewalk.

Sam keeps quiet for a few moments, listening to the muffled sound of the tires on the road outside the car. “Anything about it in that file so far?”

Steve lets out an explosive sigh, shaking his head. “Nat translated what she could, but there’s nothing on these sticky notes about...that.” He flips back a page, skimming down the bright yellow sticky notes on the inner side of it. “There’s something about a chair and electricity, some things about...about ‘upkeep procedures’, but nothing about…” He makes a grated, frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “It’s all in pieces, and what pieces I can read don’t make much sense to me.”

“Well, maybe that base’s coordinates she left us will have some answers,” Sam returns, jerking his chin towards the file.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Steve replies, jaw squaring. His fingers tighten against aged file paper before he loosens up and flips to the next page, reading over Natasha’s notes again like he’s going to find something he missed during the first five look throughs.

\-----

Steve closes the passenger door and rounds the car to the back, gravel crunching under boot. Sam pops the trunk open and they each reach in for their gear. Steve strips his coat and jeans off and lays them in the back, pulling his dark blue uniform on in place of them, then unzips his bag, pulling his shield out and sliding it onto his forearm. He turns to look over in the direction of the base, helmet dangling from his fingers by the chin strap.

They walk two miles through forest, the trees overhead shielding them from the worst of the sun. It’s setting by the time they reach the clearing, crouching down behind bushes to survey the perimeter in pink and peach light. It’s quiet, and one shared glance with Sam confirms he’s noticed it too; it’s _too_ quiet: no animals, no birds, not even insects. It’s unnaturally silent where there should be life lingering in the nooks and crannies of the forest. They observe for ten minutes, then split and slowly scout the whole perimeter, meeting back where they started and watching for another ten minutes, until the sun has sunk and night has half-taken over the sky, then Steve gives Sam a nod and they move, sprinting for the front door, Sam’s wings ready to spread and take off at a moment’s notice and Steve’s fingers tightening around his shield strap.

Steve doesn’t hear anything, but he forces the lock open as quietly as he can and pushes the door open, silent on its hinges, straining his hearing for any sign of activity-

It’s silent, as devoid of life as the forest at his back.

He slowly steps inside, keeping an eye out for traps, and then gestures for Sam to follow him in, quietly closing the door behind them.

They search down one hall, then another, and another, each as empty as the last, each room they carefully peek into as deserted as all the rest. There’s file cabinets open, most of them half empty, rolling chairs against walls like the people sitting in them got up suddenly and didn’t bother putting them back. All of the computers are blank, just dark screens with a blinking cursor and no way to dig at any information that might be left inside, hard drives wiped clean. There’s drawers pulled open, papers littering floors. Some rooms are immaculate, like they’ve never been touched a day since their construction, others are messier than Steve’s bedroom back in D.C., littered and cluttered. 

They find stairs and cautiously take them down. They go through sub level one, two, three, find them as empty as the rest, and then the air changes somehow at sub level four, the hair on the back of Steve’s neck standing on end as he stands in front of the door. He looks over at Sam in the glow of the single, green ‘Exit’ sign in the hall and sees him swallow in its light, then tilt his head down and tightens his jaw, gives a sharp nod. Steve nods back and faces the door, reaching for the handle and pressing down until the door slowly pushes open with a loud _click_ and quietly creaking hinges.

The hall ahead is just like sub level one through three’s, it goes on for fifty feet, a series of doors lining either side before splitting left and right at the end. But unlike the last three floors, these doors are numbered above their frames with a...symbol of some kind on the doors themselves below the single square glass window in each one. Each symbol is the same, and Steve commits it to memory as he slowly steps closer and peeks through the little wired window about eye height. The room beyond door one is empty, just a white, sterile room, but he hears Sam suck in a breath behind him and whips around, scanning the hall before realizing Sam’s staring into room eight. He walks over, glancing at Sam’s wide-eyed face and bracing himself before peering inside.

There’s a body inside, wrists shackled with chains pulling the arms out towards opposite walls. There’s a chain coming from what must be a collar around the neck, connected up to the ceiling. The ankles are shackled, chains connected to opposite walls like the wrists and legs spread, not as far as the arms, but further than shoulder width apart. The whole of it makes a star, Steve dimly realizes, but he also quickly realizes what made Sam suck in a breath is the _symbols_. 

They look like they’re carved over the whole body, into the skin, even beneath the rags hanging low and worn on the bony hips, on the verge of falling off from the lack of muscle and fat. The head is hanging forward too low for Steve to make out a face or features, and the body itself is wasted away to the point where he can’t quite tell the gender, like they’d been left there to starve until past death. The symbols aren’t in any language Steve knows, but they’re like the ones on the doors below the glass windows, scrawled over skin, through it, precise, like it was done with the sharpest blade and a world of patience. They look healed around the edges too, like they’ve been there for a while.

Steve leans away from the window and looks over at Sam, then down the hallway at the other doors and counts.

Twelve. Twelve doors.

Steve steps back over to the his side of the hall and over to door two, looking back at Sam. Sam swallows and gives a nod, and walks up to door nine.

The rest of Steve’s side are empty except door seven at the end where he finds what he knows is a grown man this time, not nearly as wasted away as the body in room eight. Sam finds another person in room ten, somewhere between room eight and seven in state of decomposition. They’re not fresh, Steve doesn’t think, but they’re not exactly _old_ , either, at least one of them. He and Sam regroup at the split at the end of the hall and look down the left to find a closed door with the word ‘Personnel’ painted on it in dark red, and then down the right, the last light just before the blank white door flickering. They both take a breath and head left first, and when Steve tries the door handle, it twists open.

The room inside is a mess, papers strewn everywhere and chair tipped over, computer showing the same, blinking cursor on a black screen as the rest in the upper levels. There’s a suitcase on the ground, contents spilled out everywhere like they were trailing after their owner’s haste, a white labcoat bunched on the floor beneath the tipped over chair. He and Sam check everything and find nothing of value, then head back out into the hall and down towards the opposite end. They stop at the door, listening for a minute before Steve reaches for the handle, shield raised. As soon as his fingers wrap around the handle, the light above them stops flickering and both their eyes dart up, squinting into the light. They glance at each other, Sam’s pistol aimed low with both hands on the grip, and then Steve twists the door handle-

It’s unlocked, and he slowly pushes the door open, peeking inside-

And freezes, stomach roiling. The door falls the rest of the way open under its own weight, hinges creaking quietly. Sam takes a look inside and blanches about as much as Steve feels he does.

The room’s covered in blood. The steel table in the middle is the brightest thing, almost obscenely clean, but the walls and floor and ceiling are covered in dark, dried red, splashing out like an explosion. The equipment is off and just as covered, dark monitor screens and dangling cords and cables, steel trays covered in disorganized surgical tools.

Steve takes a breath and can smell the dried blood and...ozone? Takes a step and looks down, sees the blood flake and break apart under his boots as he slowly walks forward, leaving tracks in the red. Those symbols line the border of the steel table, he realizes once he’s close enough, all the way around, when he’s done circling the thing. He looks up, brows drawing together at the blood on the ceiling. It’s like the rest, like someone exploded on the table and the blood went everywhere, but- He looks down. The table is clean, as pristine as if it were new.

He frowns and looks over at Sam, who draws his eyes down from the ceiling too and gives a small shake of his head, lips pressed flat together. It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.

They search the rest of the room and find nothing outside of a video recorder in a back corner on a counter, but when Sam tries getting it to play, there’s nothing but static and a near drained battery. They leave it and everything else behind with a few well placed charges, then get out of the base and head back to the car, blowing the base to rubble once they’re half a mile away. Once they’re back at the car, they stow their equipment and uniforms back in their bags in the trunk and get back in the front, and put some distance between them and the base as they head back down the old gravel road. Once they reach the end of it, Sam pulls the out onto the empty asphalt and they keeping head down towards West.

“So...what we’ve got so far is: an empty base, all important information taken or destroyed, three dead bodies in weird...occult looking positions in different states of decomposition, and a room with an unexplainable blood explosion,” Sam says, keeping his eyes on the road, “And no sign of Barnes or active Hydra for what’s probably been since the helicarriers went down a week ago. That about sum it up?”

Steve takes a measured breath, then lets it out with a, “Yeah.”

It’s quiet for a minute, then-

“Have you ever-” Sam starts.

But Steve’s already shaking his head. “No,” he cuts him off, frowning, “No, I’ve never- seen anything like _that_ from Hydra.”

“You sure you just didn’t look deep enough?” Sam asks, glancing over.

Steve looks back, then reaches down and pulls his backpack out from under his seat, then the Winter Soldier file out from inside that, slowly flipping it open again. A photograph of Bucky’s blue, ice covered, sleeping face takes up most of the inside cover, and Steve drops his eyes down from it to the small, smiling one he knows better, attached to the bottom with a paperclip.

He’s hunted Hydra bases before, made a career out of it for about a year during the war. That was his _job_ , but he’d never seen... 

“I don’t know,” he finally answers, “But there wasn’t anything about what we saw in there in here.”

“Maybe we’re missing something,” Sam voices Steve’s suspicion, glancing over at the file in his lap, “Maybe that’s not his only file.”

“If it isn’t…” Steve trails off, flipping it closed and looking up, out the window, _Then where’s the other one? And what’s in it?_

\-----

Nat texts them more coordinates. Steve’s not exactly sure where she’s getting them and she rarely texts back when he texts her, but they check them out just the same. They hit another base in Wisconsin, which doesn’t have any of the strange sub levels or even any of the symbols that the last one had. Then they head down over to Nebraska, then all the way up in the middle of nowhere Montana. By about the time Steve’s done showering in their cheap motel just past the border into Wyoming, his phone vibrates on the nightstand between the two single beds. He towels at his hair before folding the towel over and setting it up on the rack above the toilet, then walks over and picks up his phone, checking the screen.

‘ _Got your passports?_ ’

Steve frowns, taking a seat on his bed, and pulls up the coordinates in his phone’s web browser. His eyebrows rise. “Looks like the next stop is in Belarus.”

Sam’s eyebrows climb up like Steve’s own where he’s slurping up noodles at the little table pulled just shy of the windows. He takes a drink of water and stands, stretching his arms above his head, smooth dark skin peeking out between his jeans and the bottom of his t-shirt. “Can’t say I’ve ever been there. Can we even get there with things as they are?”

Steve shrugs a little, looking back down at his phone while Sam tosses his plastic noodle dish and plastic fork in the trash. “We’ll find a way.”

“Definitely not ‘the man with the plan’,” Sam jokes on his way to his duffel bag, crouching down at the end of his bed and pulling it open.

“I’ve got a plan,” Steve returns, glancing up briefly.

“Yeah, ‘find Bucky’,” Sam replies, looking over with a raised brow. Steve’s lips press together a little, lower one pushing up a tiny a bit. “But between here and there? _Pfft_.”

Steve rolls his eyes, looking back down at his phone. He pulls up flight options, then discards the idea and looks up ship options instead.

“Gonna ask Stark?” Sam asks, digging into his bag.

“No,” Steve answers, brows drawing together a little. He shuts his phone screen off after getting a couple rates. “I’d rather not bring him into this.”

Sam pauses, eyes shifting up to him, and Steve makes himself look over. “There a ‘why’ in there I should know about?” Sam asks.

Steve’s lips press together and Sam’s eyebrows rise a little bit. Steve debates with himself for another few moments before letting out a sigh. “Zola showed me some things in the SSR bunker.”

“You’ve said,” Sam replies, tone leading him on.

Steve sits up a little straighter. “It was... _implied_ that Bucky- the _Winter Soldier_ may have...been responsible for Howard’s- the Stark’s deaths,” he makes himself finish.

Sam’s eyebrows jump up a little more and then he sits back on his heels, forearms resting on his knees as he looks up to the water stained ceiling. “That could complicate things,” he says slowly, “More than they are already.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies on a blown out breath, “More than a little.”

“You gonna tell him?” Sam asks, looking back over.

Steve pauses, eyes on the orange and brown carpet between his jean clad knees. “I will, eventually,” he replies slowly, “I’m just not sure now is...the best time, not when we’re trying to find Bucky and find him _alive_. I don’t...no, I have a pretty good idea how Stark’s going to handle it, and it’s not going to be good.”

Sam sighs quietly but nods, standing up with a bundle of clothes. “Any way he’ll find out from the files Romanoff dumped during the takedown?”

Steve shakes his head a little, looking up. “I don’t know.” He pauses again. “It’s wrong for me to hope he does though, isn’t it.”

Sam’s lips curve up a little, sad and understanding. “It’s not easy telling someone something like that,” he says quietly.

Steve swallows and nods, closing his eyes, and listens to Sam’s footsteps move away, followed by the bathroom door clicking shut. It isn’t long before he hears the water start and he drops back on the bed, arms splayed out over the other edge. He opens his eyes and stares up at the water stains in the ceiling, listening to the shower run through the motel wall. 

After a minute, he grabs his phone and lifts it up over his head and tries searching for the rune he saw on those doors again, dropping his arm down when it doesn’t magically appear on any of the lists in the image results. He’s tried searching for runes, has spent hours just getting lost in the deep ends of the internet, up to his ears in occult lore, past and current, but it wasn’t in any of them, like it doesn’t exist.

\-----

They cut their way straight across back to New York, and from there, with more than a little extra cash, take a boat across the Atlantic and dock in France. They take trains and buses and walk their way through France, around just inside the border of Germany (it was either that or go around it completely by traveling through Austria, and Steve wasn’t quite willing to go that far), into Poland, then, finally, into Belarus. As nice and colorful as all the places are, especially during sunrise and sunset, they try to keep their heads down. They keep up the pattern of paying for lodging at night, leaving early in the morning, and always grabbing food on their way to or from, never during their stays. Within two weeks, they’re finally within sight of their destination.

It’s an old building on the outskirts of the city, just a little ways off from the Primeval Forest. A large, very old forest that spans over a thousand square miles, from what he and Sam piece together from the information they’ve gleamed on their way to the Hydra base. It’s a good place to get lost in if you’re running from something, so after scouting the building’s perimeter, they enter from the forest facing side, in case an alarm goes off and they need to cut Hydra agents off before they can get too far.

Steve checks the wiring around the door, since this one actually _has_ some, and between him and Sam, break the few wires that seem rigged to the possible security system. They both hold their breath and, after quietly breaking open the lock’s box and a few more wires in there, the little light switching from red to green, Steve keeps turning the door handle until the lock snaps and the door opens an inch. Steve listens for a tense minute, keeping his breathing near silent, and when he doesn’t hear anything, opens the door a little wider and checks around the inside for any sensors before taking a slow step and stilling. 

No alarms go off, no lights flash, and he lets out a slow breath, glancing back at Sam before walking the rest of the way inside.

This building’s halls are narrower than any of the others, the architecture more compact, older. There’s one hall straight ahead, then one to their left and right. They both decide to start down the left, checking every door for wiring and listening at each one before they open them and look inside. The rooms are tidy and neat. Steve checks over the single laptop they come across after three rooms while Sam goes through the file cabinet behind him, pulling open one drawer after another and skimming the labels. There’s not much Steve can access on the laptop without a password, some of the more sensitive looking files (labeled ‘P1-P12’, which Steve has an idea about, but can’t confirm his suspicion) locked, but he does find a schematic for some sort of...tube-like machine that he memorizes, and some chemical formulas he doesn’t understand but makes a mental note to ask Natasha about the next chance he gets. With the room cleared and no files Sam deemed worth keeping, they slip out and close the door behind them, and move onto the next one.

Three more rooms later and at the end of the hall, they both look right and find a staircase going down behind another going up.

Steve looks over at Sam and raises an eyebrow while Sam frowns, looking up at the ceiling and then down at the staircase going down again. Steve starts to raise his hand to sign to Sam-

Something whispers across his jaw from behind his ear and Steve whips around, fists clenched and body tense, ready to move- But no one’s there, just the corner of the hall they came from. He moves over slowly, cautiously, pulling his shield off his back and slipping it onto his forearm, and puts his back to the wall, slowly peering around the corner, braced for an attack-

The hall is empty.

He frowns and looks back over at Sam, who’s watching him, gun drawn and aimed down at the floor while he waits for Steve’s signal. Sam tilts his chin up a little and Steve shakes his head, going back over to him. Sam frowns and tilts his head, and Steve glances back behind him, then ahead to the stairwells. He can’t see much beyond the fifth step of the one going down, even with his eyesight, it’s just black, and he doesn’t hear anything coming from the floor above them or the one they’re on, so…

He nods his head towards the staircase going down and looks over at Sam, who nods. Steve starts forward, frowning a little at the cold shiver that ripples up his spine when his boot hits the first step and continues down, down into the dark.

They walk for what feels like a mile, steps so quiet on the stone stairs they’re almost silent. It’s...off, somehow, quieter than it should be, but Steve keeps quiet and keeps heading down, unease pooling in his gut the further they go. It’s a relief to be able to hear Sam’s steps, feel his body heat at his back, even though that, too, is muted somehow.

Finally, after what feels like an hour but is probably closer to thirty minutes, Steve thinks he sees a dim glow up ahead. It gets brighter the more they walk, fades from black, to off-black, to off-green, then the stairwell suddenly curves and Steve’s blinded by the color, as bright as a lamp suddenly put in front of his face in a dark room. He blinks his stinging eyes quickly, faintly hears Sam stutter to a stop behind him and tries to squint through his eyes adjusting to the light, eyes widening when he can finally make out the room.

It’s a hall, the walls made of jagged, shining, black rock with emerald green streaks of light- no, gemstone? Green, glowing gemstone running like thin cracks all up through the walls, the ceiling, the floor. It reminds him of the Emerald City from _The Wizard of Oz_. There’s a steel door at the other end, and he and Sam take a step down onto the glowing ground, stuttering to a stop at the way a harder shiver _zings_ up from Steve’s foot throughout his body and the sounds of their steps distorts, coming to him like he’s got water in his ears. He darts his eyes over to Sam, who’s looking down at the floor, brows drawn together. He looks back up at Steve and they both try to shake it off, carefully making their way across the room, eyes on the lookout for any traps (and Steve trying to ignore the way his body’s starting to lightly tingle).

They check the door for any wires, locks, but the only lock seems to be the metal bar diagonally across it, and Steve cautiously reaches for it, gripping the handle while he listens for anything that might be on the other side. There’s nothing, so he slowly pulls, quietly grateful when he door pulls open silently-

A chorus of chanting voices spill out from the opening and Steve freezes and shudders, eyes closing briefly. The strange words wash over his skin like- like the petroleum jelly Howard had squeezed over his torso for a makeshift x-ray when he’d broken three ribs during a mission with the Commandos, except- all _over_. He looks over at Sam who shudders, looking back with his brows drawn together. The voices stop and Steve takes a slow breath, that _slithery-jelly_ feeling disappearing as soon as they do. A whisper of breath snakes along his jaw from behind his ear again and Steve whips his head around and looks back over his shoulder, but still doesn’t see anything, so he frowns, and him and Sam silently slip past the door and inside.

The room beyond is a _cavern_ , the room and ceiling huge and a jagged, round shape, ceiling arching up into black nothing high above. They seem to be on the highest wrap around platform, tall pillars of that glowing, emerald streaked, black rock hiding them from sight, connected to the platform they’re on of the same material, like it’s been carved out of the rock. Steve silently pulls the steel door most of the way closed behind them, pausing to wedge a loose chunk of rock between it and the frame so it’s not shut all the way, then turns back around, slowly stepping forward just enough to peer over the glowing, rocky railing.

The glowing emerald streaks get wider as they go down the three stories to the bottom, all coming together to pool in the center in a bright, almost eye searing neon, lighting the room and the Hydra agents surrounding it in a wide circle a mostly green-blue. There’s a metal tube in the center of the pool of light, like the one Steve saw the schematics for, black chains from the walls connected to three points on each side holding it aloft at an angle, the bottom, curved edge resting on the glowing mound of rock. The window towards the top center is reflecting the glowing light too much for Steve to tell if it’s empty or not.

The man standing exact opposite of the tube some twenty feet away behind a podium throws his hands up in the air, monocle over his right eye glinting bright like the window in the metal tube. “ _Now we begin!_ ” he lets out, accent something Steve can’t quite discern with the way sound seems to _waver_ around the room. The man starts speaking in a language Steve can’t understand and he grits his teeth as it seems to _ooze_ through his ears like thick, black oil, making his fingers curl tight and his jaw clench. The chanting starts up for a minute after the height of the man’s words and all the green glow in the rocks _pulsates_ , the center flaring a little brighter as it lights back up. The man speaks again and Steve feels like his breath gets a little knocked out of him, looking over at Sam as he nods his chin down to the group below, gesturing at himself, then at Sam and his gun. Sam’s expression is pinched and his own jaw is clenched, body tensed, but he nods, and Steve steps back to shift over and get in position.

The chanting stops and a breeze starts up, small at first before it starts to pick up. The man below speaks again and Steve has to shake his head when his vision starts going double, eyes catching on a black- tornado? When he gets them back open, it’s a swirling vortex of black, small but quickly growing in size, coming down out of the center of the pitch black of the shadowed ceiling. It swirls down, counter clockwise, and Steve thinks he sees...black chains coming out of the mass of it, not making a sound but swirling all the same. Arcs of cyan lightning streak across its spinning surface, glow from the center between the varying gaps and it’s- hard to look at.

Steve shakes his head again and focuses past the pounding starting up in his head, past the way his heartbeat seems to be trying to pulse in time with the growing frequency of the glow in the rocks, past the dread starting to pool in his gut at the feel of the black tornado, and sprints for the edge as soon as the man’s words stop, steps unnaturally silent in the gap between the man’s words and the Hydra agent’s chanting-

Steve throws his shield, sees the man’s eyes catch on him almost in slow motion, head tilting back as he looks up, mouth opening on what might be sound, but Steve can’t hear it, can’t even hear his shield leave his fingers, the room silent even as the tornado continues to spin. Steve skims by it, five feet away, catches the chains out of the corner of his eye and a feeling of radiating _cold_ and then he’s dropping, almost too slow as his shield collides with the man’s face, bouncing off towards another slackjawed Hydra agent as Sam’s bullets skim down and hit two more, the room pulsating when they hit the floor-

And then time and sound seem to resume and Steve’s legs almost buckle on the landing and he rolls with the momentum, coming back up and catching his shield just in time to block gunfire and charge into the firing agents. A few fire back up at Sam and Steve throws his shield when he can, the sound of the bullets flying a deafening, ricocheting echo in the cavern. Steve catches the man that was leading the- ritual? Trying to get up and takes down another agent, Sam shooting the last square in the forehead, leaving Steve free to run over and slam his boot down on the hand trying to reach for the book the man apparently dropped, his outraged, pained shout echoing off the now consistently glowing walls, pulsating gone.

“You fool!” the man shouts from the ground, a little messy and garbled from the blood dripping down his face and from his mouth, angry eyes turning up, “Do you realize what you have done?! How _dare_ you interrupt the sacred rite-”

Steve slams his shield down into the man’s face and he goes quiet, a more natural kind this time as he drops unconscious to the floor, and Steve takes a breath, scanning his eyes around. All of the other agents are knocked out or dead, the cave isn’t pulsating, though it still makes Steve shiver, and when he looks up, the black, counter clockwise spinning tornado is gone, chains and lightning and all. Steve looks down and crouches to grab the book the man was reaching for, blinking hard when the words on the pages seem to swim before his eyes. He looks down to make sure the man’s out before slowly walking over to the mound of glowing rocks in the center and the chained up tube, frowning and closing the book when the words don’t start making any more sense. He looks over the rocks and takes a slow, cautious step onto them, relaxing when nothing happens (more than the strange feelings he was already experiencing) and climbing up as Sam’s steps start to register behind him.

“What we got?” Sam asks.

Steve climbs up a little higher and steps up close to the tube, looking over and down into the round glass window. He sucks in a breath.

“ _Bucky_.”

“Barnes?” Comes Sam’s voice, closer than before. Steve vaguely hears his steps as he climbs up the glowing rocks too, but mostly he’s just focused on-

“Yeah,” he breathes, dragging his eyes away from Bucky’s closed ones in the round window to try and find a way to open the tube. He sets the book down and rounds to the other side, looking over the chains and locks. The chains seem to be partly keeping it closed, connected to two half circles coming together as one from the top and bottom of the tube. There’s more symbols along the seam of the tube, too, like the steel table back at the first base. Steve brings his shield up and slams it down into the closest chain, blinking when his shield rebounds back and the chain doesn’t...break.

Sam stares over at him and Steve looks up, a little bewildered. “That...doesn’t usually happen,” Sam says slowly.

“No, it doesn’t,” Steve agrees a little hesitantly, looking back down at the chain. He leans a little closer to get a better look, frowning.

The chains are almost pitch black, especially in the glowing lighting, and this one appears to have more symbols carved into it, one for each link. They repeat up until Steve can’t make them out anymore, but he assumes they go all the way to where the chains connect into the walls. He looks back to the tube and frowns, worrying the inside of his cheek before taking a step and raising his shield again. He aims it down for joined circles of silver steel where the chains are hooked to the tube and slams it down-

The shield jerks back with flaring, neon green sparks, bringing his arms almost clear back over his head as he stumbles, hit rebuffed like there’s some sort of...shield?

“What the hell,” Steve lets out, eyes a little wide.

“I don’t normally buy into the magic thing,” Sam starts, several steps backed up, and Steve slowly drags his eyes up from the tube to him. Sam holds the book up. “But maybe we should do some research before trying anything else. Y’all messed with a cube and opened a wormhole, let’s not...do something like that again.”

Steve nods slowly and lowers his arms, frowning down at the chains, the tube, at the little window where he can just make out Bucky’s dark, fanned lashes and the pale, smooth bridge of his nose. 

“I don’t know if it’ll do any good,” Steve says, dragging his eyes away and looking back up to Sam, “When I tried reading it, the words...moved.”

“They- oh,” Sam cuts off, blinking hard down at the book open in his arms, “Yeah, that’s...um. Well. Different.” He squints at the book, lowering his head closer then back further away. “I can’t read it like this.”

Steve’s eyes light up when a thought occurs to him and he looks back over at the man from earlier. “The man that was leading that ritual had a monocle. Maybe that’s how he was reading it,” he says, hopping down from the rocks.

“Worth a try,” Sam says, blinking hard again before looking over and adding in a mumble, “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve come across.” 

Steve heads over and crouches down to grab the monocle, then jogs back to Sam, looking over Sam’s shoulder at the book as he holds the monocle up and closing his other eye. But the words still swim, and Steve looks way from the book again as he makes a frustrated sound, tossing the monocle away. “Does nothing,” he reports. He looks back over at the book, but the words just keep swimming, swimming, _swimming_ -

There’s a scuffing sound and then a cough, and they both look over. The man slowly pushes himself up on his hands, looking up at them, then laughs, loud and wet, blood black under the green-blue lighting. “You can’t read it,” he says smugly, grinning, black over his tongue and between his teeth, “And even if you could, you would not understand what it said.”

Steve straightens.

The man could be lying, but if he’s right, the only one they know right now who _can_ read it is Hydra, and whatever he was doing earlier didn’t look good, and it was happening above _Bucky_. Even if Steve let the man read the book, they’d have no promise that he wouldn’t just be doing more of...whatever he was doing when they interrupted him.

Steve hears the book close behind him and Sam take a step forward. “What is this book?” Sam asks, “These chains? What were you doing here?”

The man spits out some blood and sits up, wiping gingerly at his mouth with a wince, eyes never leaving them. “Even if I told you, you would not like the answer. Especially you, dear Captain,” he taunts, eyes on Steve, “To know what we did to your poor _Bucky_ , it would break your heart.” He grins, cruel, and Steve takes a step forward, fingers tightening on his shield strap. Sam’s hand comes down on his shoulder and he stops.

“What _did_ you do to him?” Steve grounds out. He can play along, at least for now, to find out what they did to Bucky. He can hold it together that long. “What is all this?” He gestures at the tube, the chains, the room.

“ _Centuries_ of excavation and hard work,” the man replies, spitting out another wad of blood and glancing around the cavern, “Long, hard years of seeking.” His eyes come back to Steve and he smiles again. “And you dropped the final ingredient right into our laps.” 

Steve grits his teeth.

“It took us more years than I care to count, finding a suitable subject,” the man continues, raising a brow and somehow looking in control of the situation even though they all know he’s anything but, especially with the blood all over his face. “We’re still not quite sure what did it, perhaps an external variable, perhaps an _internal_ one,” he continues, tone slipping down into suggestive. Steve keeps his breathing even. “Whatever it was, your Sergeant was the perfect fit. And now-” the man pauses, smirking. He says a rush of that strange language again and Steve jolts as the lighting in the room spikes with that hard shudder that shakes his body and he throws his shield before he can think too much about it. The words stop with a spurt of blood from where his shield splits the man’s skull and embeds into his face, body dropping with a dulled _thud_ as the sound starts to filter back into the room again. Steve takes a breath, giving himself a full body shake and looking over at Sam.

Sam gives his own shake and looks back, resting a hand against the side of his forehead. “What the hell _is_ that?”

“I don’t know, but at least it’s not happening again, for now,” Steve replies, looking around the room. At least...he doesn’t think?

The glowing is still bright where it spiked, almost blinding where they’re standing near the center, but it’s not pulsating and it’s not making his heart pound, just- well, maybe a little. He heads over to grab his shield and then jogs back as Sam gets the book back open, eyes widening. 

“What is it?” Steve asks, coming up next to him, and then his own eyes widen.

He doesn’t know the language, but the text isn’t swimming anymore.

He scans down the page Sam’s on, skimming over the lines of strange words and rough diagrams, pictures, as Sam slowly flips through it.

“What was he saying?” Sam asks, scanning the pages as he looks through it.

Steve repeats the last few words he heard and they both jump, eyes wide as the pages whip like a wind is rapidly flipping through the book. The pages stop and the book lays open in Sam’s arms at a page halfway through, and they both scan over it. Steve recognizes some of the sounds the man was saying, vaguely, when he tries to read it in his head, but it’s still-

Ah. There. That’s where he stopped. There’s one more word.

 _Ilrunmon tilegyumo_ -

“ _Sarsnus_ ,” Steve finishes. 

The light around them spikes blinding and Steve can’t hear a thing, but he sees the black tornado from earlier noiselessly streak down and cover the tube, sending his heart up into his throat. The black of it soaks into the near seamless lines of the metal and then the glowing, green-blue light in the cavern drops back to its normal glow, and Steve tries hard to blink the bright shapes from his eyes. He feels more than hears great weights drop either side of them and then he can make out the shapes of the chains laying down across the center glow and out across the room, disconnected from the walls. They’re- they’re shrinking, large links getting smaller and smaller as they slither _into_ the tube, somehow, disappearing into the seam. And then the tube pops open and Steve and Sam take a step back, the lid coming up and around and down until the curved end edge is resting against the rocks, like a coffin out of some Dracula novel. 

Steve stares at- Bucky, naked as the day he was born. His hair’s still longer than it ever was, and his skin is smooth and clean, like he’s never born a scar in his life, even the ones Steve knows should be there-

Bucky’s eyes crack open, not gray or blue but a neon, bluish-green, even the whites of them, and more of those symbols flash briefly all over the length of his body, from his toes to what Steve can see of his forehead beneath his long bangs, even the curves of his ears, black outlined in cyan- And then they’re gone like they were never there, and Bucky’s eyes slowly open the rest of the way. The glow slowly fades until it’s just his irises and pupils, the whites of his eyes- pitch black. His back curves up and his legs move, one forward and then the other out of the tube in one unnaturally smooth motion, like a liquid doll. He keeps going, kneeling down on one knee and bowing his head, hair hanging over the glowing rocks.

“What is your desire…” Bucky’s voice croaks, rough and unused and unlike anything Steve’s ever heard come out of his throat. Bucky’s head slowly lifts and he looks up, black pupils filling his eyes’ centers before thinning to cat-like slits. His dark eyebrows lower and he almost snarls, canines and the teeth either side of them, above and below, sharp, like a dog’s, “ _Steven Grant Rogers_.”

Steve stares at him, mind blank.


	2. Bellarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I needed to fix some things.

“Bucky,” Steve says, soft and clear, the first thing to come to mind like it almost always is, still.

Bucky’s eyes narrow a fraction. “Who the hell is-” He stops, pressing his lips together as his eyes drop, mumbling as they search the ground, “I’ve said this.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve latches on, pausing briefly when Bucky’s strange eyes snap back up to his. Steve licks his lower lip. “You said that a week ago, when we were fighting in the street. Do you remember?”

Bucky’s brows lower. “I am unable to fulfill that order,” he replies flatly, and Steve leans back a little, frowning.

“‘Order’?” he asks.

“All previous missions are to be wiped on current master’s term fulfillment,” Bucky answers like he’s quoting someone. Hydra?

“Who ordered you to do that?” Steve demands, but Bucky just stares at him flatly, almost in annoyance. “Do you remem-” Steve stops at a hand on his shoulder, eyes darting over to Sam, who stares back with a pensive look. 

“Steve,” he starts, “I think we need to be real careful right now. We don’t know what’s going on, what ‘orders’ actually means, or why you need to give them.”

Steve snaps his mouth shut, fists curling while he looks back down. 

Sam’s right. They don’t know why Bucky’s behaving the way he is, why he _looks_ the way he does, what _any_ of this is, just that it has something to do with Hydra, this glowing room, the black tornado and chains from earlier, and the book. They need answers, something beyond his own selfish wants.

Wait.

The tornado...that went _into_ the tube. 

Steve straightens. “Are you Bucky Barnes?” he asks quietly, gut slowly twisting with _dread_ and _fear_ and _hope_.

“No,” Bucky- not Bucky? Answers, and Steve swallows hard, fingers curling tight.

“Who are you?” he makes himself ask, staring into the face of what _should_ be his best friend, but- isn’t? He looks the same while he simultaneously _doesn’t_.

“A demon,” Not-Bucky answers, matter of fact, and Steve and Sam’s eyes widen a fraction, darting briefly to each other.

“‘A demon’?” Steve asks incredulously, “That black tornado from earlier was supposed to be…?”

Not-Bucky nods and Steve frowns.

He used to go to church every Sunday growing up, used to almost always go with Bucky, and he believed then, believed it down to his bones. And that’s where the lick of anxiety comes up from, from long buried and not-quite forgotten religion buried in his bones.

But Bucky can’t really be...can he? Steve’s not sure he buys it. He’s seen a lot since waking up in the future, but angels and demons weren’t any one of them.

“If you’re a demon, then can you prove it? If that tornado was you, then are you possessing this body?” Steve asks. Not-Bucky stays silent, and Steve grits his teeth a little. “ _Why are you in this body?_ ” he repeats firmly. Sam’s hand squeezes his shoulder and Steve makes himself take a slow breath.

“There is no answer,” Not-Bucky replies flatly, still staring at him, unnervingly. He hasn’t blinked this whole time, Steve realizes. “I just am.”

“You just...are,” Steve repeats roughly, brows drawing down, “You don’t know why? What happened to this body? To Bucky? Why Hydra has you?”

Bucky’s eyes fill completely with blue-green again and flare sharply as the symbols from earlier blaze across his body, and he throws his head back and _screams_ so suddenly Steve _jolts_ , hands flying out. 

“Stop- _Stop!_ You don’t have to answer!” he shouts quickly, and not-Bucky’s- Hell, _Bucky’s_ voice stops screaming, glowing symbols disappearing. He might not be who Steve’s talking to but that body’s still- It’s still _Bucky_.

Bucky’s head drops. Steve doesn’t hear him breathing hard, doesn’t hear him breathing at all, he realizes, but he’s...curled in on himself for the first time, mismatched hands coming up to grip his arms-

Mismatched?

Steve jerks back a little, wide eyes staring. 

How did he not…?

Bucky’s left arm is a patchwork of metal plates and sharp lines, as smooth as Tony’s Iron Man armor but a dark, shiny black, green light from the surrounding glow catching the edges of the plates and making them stand out in highlights. There’s more of them than on the Iron Man suit, more details to take in, and Steve swallows as his heart gives a hard kick when he reaches Bucky’s shoulder. There’s scarring wrapped around it, old and pale, the only physical sign of damage Steve can see on Bucky’s body. It’s so-

“What is that?” he asks quietly, weakly, and Bucky’s head lifts, “What happened to your arm?” His nails are longer too, sharper, the right hand’s black, and when Steve glances down briefly, sees his toenails are the same way.

Bucky- Not-Bucky looks down and over at his left arm, lifting it at the elbow a little. “I don’t know,” he answers half-dully, a hint of irritation underneath as his eyes shift back up.

...Right. He doesn’t- _can’t_ answer. Rules Steve’s learning.

They’re all quiet for a minute, Steve’s eyes still roaming over the black metal like he’ll find an answer there, something that will stop the images slowing gathering in his head and the nausea slowly building in his stomach. He jolts a little when Sam speaks.

“You said Steve was your new master,” Sam starts, not-Bucky’s slitted pupils ticking over, “What did you mean by that? What does that entail?”

Not-Bucky doesn’t answer, eyes simply shifting back to Steve, and Steve feels Sam’s eyes turn to him.

“He might need you to give him permission,” Sam says quiet near his ear, breath ghosting across the outer shell of it and sending a shiver down Steve’s spine. He sucks in a breath and holds it, forces himself to let it out slow.

“You can answer him,” Steve says, somehow just a _little_ shaky instead of the rolling sea he feels in his gut, and not-Bucky’s slitted eyes pin back on Sam.

“Steven Grant Rogers finished the incantation after the necessary sacrifices. He is my new and current master and I am his to direct until his contract expires,” he answers, almost like he’s reciting it out of a rulebook he’s read from more than once, old and ground to dust.

Steve tries to process what that all means, but it just makes him a little dizzy. He pushes the implications aside for now and tries to latch onto the one thing that doesn’t make sense, that _might_ make sense.

“‘Sacrifices’?” he asks.

Not-Bucky’s eyes shift to him, then the Hydra agents bodies littered around the rocks, then back up.

Steve looks over at the bodies, doing a doubletake when he realizes there’s no blood on the floor. It’s all gone. “I didn’t-...” he trails off.

“It does not matter who spills the blood,” Not-Bucky answers him anyway, dull and almost bored, “The sacrifices were made and the ritual completed.” _And here we are_ , goes unsaid.

They stare at one another for a few moments before Steve forces his eyes over to the book. “And this?” he asks, voice a little thready, nodding his chin a little over at it and looking back down at Bucky, “Where did this come from? Do you know why Hydra has it?” Bucky’s eyes flare again as the glowing symbols cover him and Steve manages to get out, “ _Stop!_ ” just as he starts screaming. The sound cuts off almost as soon as it starts, symbols fading, and not-Bucky’s head drops again, shoulders curling in. Steve tries hard to swallow his heart back down, fingers curled tight. “ _I’m sorry_ ,” he says, quick and helpless.

Not-Bucky doesn’t look at him, just over at the glowing rocks, the bodies, over at the pod. Maybe…

“Can you tell us anything about what went on down here, about yourself, that won’t result in pain?” Steve tries.

Not-Bucky slowly drags his eyes up, then over to the book, then tilts his head back and looks up at the black abyss that is the ceiling, dark hair slipping down past his pale shoulders to rest over his heart. “I come from The Other,” he says calmly, “None of us want to return.” He lowers his head while Steve’s brows draw together, not-Bucky staring up at him again. “I will serve you until you banish me or your contract expires. I will do anything you ask, you have but to name it.”

“This contract,” Sam speaks up from Steve’s side, making him jump slightly again, breaking eye contact with Bucky. It’s more intense than it ever was, even when Bucky only looks at him for a few seconds and his eyes are...inhuman. It’s like looking into a black pool of glowing fish, watching them swim and swim and spiral down into the water, pulling you in, making you lean closer and closer over the edge- “Is it binding? Did Steve have to trade anything for it?” Sam questions, jerking Steve out of his hazy thoughts.

“It binds until death,” Bucky nearly sighs, bored again, “His soul.”

Steve’s eyes whip back down to Bucky and he freezes. “My soul?”

Not-Bucky’s eyes bore into his, dull but vibrant, somehow. They glow brighter and then- The black chains from earlier reappear, smaller than they were and drifting around Bucky, circling- the both of them, three of them going straight through Steve’s chest even though-

He sucks in a breath, hand coming up and gripping the front of his uniform over his heart while he shudders. He can feel it, the creeping...cold, emanating from Bucky and straight _into_ him, not like fingers, nothing so blunt, but like wisps of air. They don’t fully penetrate and they don’t leech, they just hover on the outside of- something, some shell somewhere deep inside of him, like hounds waiting to attack and consume.

The chains disappear and Steve glances over to meet Sam’s wide eyes, both of them looking back down at not-Bucky. He stares up at Steve in return, eyes locking again.

“How does he get it back?” Sam forces out, voice cracking a little at the edges before he clears it. Even if neither of them believe him, it’s probably good to ask.

Not-Bucky’s eyes don’t leave Steve’s. “Through great sacrifice,” he answers vaguely, like he’s quoting again.

“Can you clarify?” Sam asks.

“No,” not-Bucky answers.

They’re quiet again. Steve’s fingers spasm a little in his uniform and he grips it tighter to still them.

 _My soul_ , he thinks.

He still doesn’t buy it, can’t, it’s too- It’s too big, too fantastical. Even with the Invasion, at least that made sense. Life on other planets isn’t so far fetched when there’s life on their own, but this is...

He shifts back a few steps and then takes a heavy seat down on the glowing rocks, staring down at them. There’s a laugh trying to bubble up from his chest, something that might be the start of a sob in his gut, but he tightens his grip, grits his teeth, locks his jaw, and keeps it all down, lowering his head a little while he tries to process everything, what he’s been told, what he thinks, what he knows. It’s hard when his mind feels numb like a white padded room.

 _All this_ , he thinks distantly, _If I really did sell my soul, it didn’t even save Bucky_.

Not the Bucky he knew.

Steve closes his eyes, can see Bucky’s smile, the one he wore when he was light and happy, before the war. The one he wore during, that was shredded at the edges and made of sharper things, but still beautiful despite it, or maybe because of it. Each one stole Steve’s breath away, first from quaking lungs and then his dam of a ribcage that could better hold back the flood of his heart trying to escape his chest cavity, trying to find its way to Bucky with every smile and laugh, the sound of his voice on a single word or a wordless hum. The serum just made more room for it all, he thinks, gave him a bigger body to hold more of those feelings he shouldn’t have had, shouldn’t have been carrying around, a heavy rock tied to his heart, still hard to hold even when his heart became strong.

Steve raises his head and looks over. Not-Bucky stares back, eyes boring into him like the chains were- _are_ , still as a kneeling statue. Steve can feel the chains easier now that he’s been made aware of them, the hot-cold feeling somewhere past his chest, maybe in his heavy heart, further.

Steve doesn’t know if this Bucky is any part of the Bucky he knew, or if he’s just some creature in Bucky’s body. He’s not sure what would be- No, he does know. He’s not so desperate that he’d betray Bucky that way, let some _thing_ take over his body like it’s a toy to be used. But...He can’t know for sure. Bucky, or whoever is in there, can’t answer him, which just leaves him with two choices:

Banish the thing inside Bucky’s body now, somehow.

Or ride this out a little longer and look for more Hydra bases, and try to make sure it really _isn’t_ Bucky he’s talking to before he does something about it. 

Maybe Hydra did something to him, more than the obvious, maybe that Other place did something to him. Maybe he just doesn’t remember because Hydra ordered his memories gone, or sealed, or maybe Hydra ordered him not to speak because- Because why would they keep Bucky Barnes around when they could make him a tool instead? Steve wasn’t around for them to torment and the war had been won, so why keep a World War Two sergeant alive? They wouldn’t, if they didn’t need him, and even if they wanted him around for…

Steve swallows, can’t go there right now, because he will later whether he wants to or not.

Even if they did keep him around, it wouldn’t be forever, would it? If anyone did this to Bucky, it was them, and they wouldn’t have a need for Bucky Barnes once they had what they wanted.

Steve comes back to himself with Sam’s hand on his shoulder and makes himself take a shaky breath of the strange air in the cavern, charged but hollowed out somehow, then forces himself back to his feet. He looks over and gives Sam a brief nod, Sam’s expression set as he gives one back, a pillar of strength Steve doesn’t feel he deserves right now. This is so much more than either of them thought it would be. All the twisted, horrific scenarios coming to mind while he read Bucky’s file and thought about Hydra, and this...this wasn’t anywhere near on his radar. Demons? Selling souls? If those are to be believed.

Steve swallows and makes himself take a breath, try to focus on what he can do right now, and looks back down to not-Bucky. “Let’s get you some clothes,” he says, and is maybe more surprised than he should be at this point when clothes seem to _materialize_ onto Bucky’s body with a gentle, swirling breeze, black swirling into clothes from seemingly nothing as he smoothly stands, covering pale inch by pale inch in seconds. 

A long sleeved top, pants, boots, and then a cloak to finish it off, those silent chains hanging down to his ankles beneath it, everything black. It makes the pale skin of his face and top of his neck stand out, and his chilling eyes look even brighter in their surrounding pitch.

Steve stares a moment before making himself turn and look at the tube, the room, eyes inevitably landing back on not-Bucky like magnets. “Do you need anything from here? Do we? Is there anything here that might tell us more about demons, you, or the occult?”

“No,” not-Bucky answers, “This place is a well used conduit, nothing more.”

“Then let’s make it a harder one for them to find,” Sam says.

\--

They watch the building go up in a cloud of dust as it sinks back into the earth, dust and debris billowing out half a mile away. Steve takes a breath and shifts his bag strap on his shoulder before turning and starting to walk again, Sam’s steps to his right and not-Bucky’s radiated cold on his left. He radiates it like a person would warmth, was more noticeable as soon as they left the glowing cave, like they left a muffling barrier.

The upper levels of the base didn’t hold anything useful to them either. It was almost empty, save for old files that had nothing to do with anything newer than 1955 (which was a chilling thought on its own, that they’ve been active that long when Steve had thought they were finished).

So they walk, keep heading away from the town they’d stayed at and into the next country.

After a minute, Steve notices the quiet and frowns a little as he looks over at not-Bucky, eyes following his feet and how they seem to almost glide over the ground before dragging up. “Do you have a name?” he asks, tries to swallow down the aching clench in his chest.

“Project 13,” not-Bucky answers.

Steve pauses briefly, a few pieces starting to click into place. He glances over at Sam and sees he’s realized the same. Steve looks back. “Do you have any other name?”

Not-Bucky keeps staring straight ahead. “No.”

Steve frowns a little. “Do you want one?” Because it’s easier to focus on this instead of everything else lurking at the edges of his mind, waiting to shred and tear him apart. He doesn’t have the time to break down right now, and he’s holding on out of sheer practice.

Not-Bucky finally looks over at him briefly before looking around at the trees, then asks, “Where is this?”

“Belarus,” Sam answers.

Not-Bucky nods once. “Then call me Bellarus.”

It’s not quite the same as their location name, ‘Bell-are-us’, but-

Steve bites his tongue, looking back over at Sam, who shrugs, raising his eyebrows a little. Steve sighs and looks back straight ahead. “‘Bellarus’ it is, then.” Now if he could just figure out if ‘Bellarus’ is really Bucky-

A twig snaps and they all freeze, eyes darting around. Steve slowly reaches back for his shield-

Buck- Bellarus disappears.

Steve stares at the empty space Bucky was just in and then hears a cutoff scream somewhere to his left, whipping around as he pulls his shield onto his forearm to look in the direction. He doesn’t see anything. He feels two taps to the heel of his right boot and shifts slightly.

“Got nothing on visual,” Sam reports low and quiet, “You?”

“No,” Steve answers in the same, darting his eyes around again. There’s nothi-

He jolts hard when Bucky _rematerializes_ ten feet in front of him, sucking in a sharp breath as Sam’s gun comes down at his front left from over the back of his shoulder, sees Sam’s grip tighten a smidge in his periphery.

“That one was aiming for your head,” Buck- Bellarus reports flatly. Steve frowns and then whirls around when Sam’s arm spasms at his left with a shout and the sound of a gunshot too far off to be his- Steve pulls Sam behind his shield and drops them both low behind it, shielding them from gunfire-

It cuts out and they both hold still, breathing quiet and shallow.

“The rest are dead,” Bucky _’_ s voice reports, and Steve slowly raises his eyes above his shield.

Bucky’s standing in front of them, staring down at them. 

Steve frowns heavily, giving him a look before moving back to try and get a look at Sam, gripping his shoulder. “Where are you injured?”

“Left side,” Sam grits out, shifting a little. There’s blood soaked into almost the entire left side of his shirt, down into his jeans. Steve’s jaw clenches and he looks back up at Buck- Bellarus as he yanks his dropped bag open and digs out his medkit. 

“You didn’t cover him,” Steve says, voice hard, getting the kit open while Sam slowly lifts his shirt with a hard wince.

“You didn’t order me to,” Buck- Bellarus, definitely not Bucky, replies.

Steve clenches his jaw again and bends down to take a look, reaching forward to check both sides. “Bullet’s still inside,” he reports grimly.

“Shit,” Sam sighs, voice strained, “I think it might be somewhere near my stomach.”

“Shit,” Steve says lowly. _We shouldn’t have changed so soon_ , not that their uniforms would’ve done too much better in a spot like that. He’ll have to berate himself more about it later. For now, he needs to figure out how to get the bullet out without a hospital.

He pauses, looking up at Bellarus.

“Can you heal him completely without harming him further?” Steve asks.

“If that is what you want,” Bellarus replies flatly.

Steve grits his teeth and looks down to Sam. “What do you think?”

“I think...it’s either that, or teleport to a hospital, neither of which sounds appealing,” Sam answers, voice tight. “Don’t think they’d take too kindly to two guys and a supposed demon materializing in the middle of their hospital,” he tries to joke, wincing again, expression tight.

Steve holds eye contact, waiting, and after another moment, Sam nods, sweat dotting his brow.

“Do it,” Steve says, looking up at Bucky.

Bucky- Bellarus’ eyes flare and Sam makes a high, strangled, surprised sound in the back of his throat, and then Steve hears a weak groan from behind him, twisting to look back over his shoulder. He frowns, quickly looking forward again when Sam pulls back. Steve’s eyes widen when he sees the wound, Sam’s hand moving over it and wiping away the blood to reveal smooth skin. Sam looks up at him and then behind him at Bellarus while Steve stands, turning and slowly walking over to the bushes behind him, shield raised. He stops and looks over them, then straightens. 

There’s a Hydra agent laying on the ground on his back, eyes staring sightlessly up at the tree tops while the wound in his side finishes oozing blood. Steve trails his eyes from the wound in his side to the gaping hole in his chest, then back, then turns and looks over at Buck- Bellarus.

“You transferred Sam’s wound,” he says blankly.

Bellarus stares flatly back.

“He _what?_ ” Sam asks, incredulous, looking over at Steve and then back at Bellarus as he walks over and looks behind the bushes too. He reels back, eyes wide. “Shit. He _did_.”

Steve’s fingers curl as the...implications whirl.

 _He can heal completely, but it’s only because he’s giving the wound to someone else_.

“How do you choose who it goes to?” Steve asks, turning around and heading back over.

Bellarus tilts his head slightly. “I pick someone,” he answers, “Or you do.”

Steve clenches his jaw, absorbing that. The more he learns about...Bellarus, the more ideas he gets about what Hydra might’ve used him for.

Sam walks back over and they share a look, then grab their bags and start walking again, Bellarus silently following. Part of Steve wants to say _thank you_ , but the other part is starting to sink into a list of troubling possibilities.

\-----

“Do you know what Projects 1-12 were?” Sam asks, and Steve surfaces out of the black spiral he’s been in for the past- ten minutes? His attention started drifting when they weren’t ambushed again and things were quiet, and he slowly sunk, drug down like he had a plane chained to his ankles, no chance to resist-

“I am unable to fulfill that order,” Bu- Bellarus replies, dull and annoyed, jerking Steve out of his thoughts again. Sam doesn’t sigh, but Steve’s vaguely aware that he wants to.

“So we’ve got Hydra experimenting with occult shit, _possibly_ demons. Are angels real?” Sam asks, looking over.

Bellarus keeps his eyes on anywhere but them, like the surrounding forest is more interesting than they are. “Yes.”

Steve jerks to a stop, head snapping up. “What?”

Sam and Bellarus stop, the latter’s eyes slanting boredly over to him, staring a little pointedly as if to say, _I’m here. Why wouldn’t they be?_

“What do you...know about them?” Steve asks, swallows. _They might not be real,_ he thinks _, We can’t even really confirm that **he’s** a demon_.

Bellarus looks away again. “Not much. Powerful, difficult to summon. Takes more than it took for me.”

Steve stares a moment before dropping his eyes to the ground, fingers tightening around his shield strap. “That means...there might be a Heaven. There might be a God.”

“I don’t know,” Bellarus sighs, put upon, “It is not within my duties to know.”

“‘Not within your’-” Steve lets out, staring at him. 

He sounds so... _bored_ by it, like it isn’t- Like it _isn’t_ shattering and reshaping his world one earth shaking brick at a time. Even if it’s not the heaven Steve’s heard preached about in mass, or the God he used to pray to, it’s still-

“It doesn’t amaze you?” he asks quietly. He glances over at Sam, sees his pensive expression before his gaze lands on the side of Bucky’s head. Bucky’s hair catches the low light from the sun through the trees, the surrounding greens. It shimmers, almost, the reflection in the dark brown, and Steve gets lost in staring at all the reflected colors there until Bucky- Bellarus turns his head and looks at him, black pinpoints in glowing blue-green, surrounded by abyss black sending a shock through his system, a small cold shiver down his spine. Something tightens in his chest. 

Every time Steve sees his back, a large part of him screams _Bucky_ , but then he’ll turn around and it’ll hit Steve like a shock of ice water all over again.

“I am old,” is all Bellarus says, then looks away to the surrounding forest again.

“How-” Steve stops himself, not sure he wants to know. But he does know, doesn’t he? 70 years. 70 years of Bucky trapped in Hydra’s greedy, snake oil hands. But, _if_ angels and heaven and God are real, then- “Why aren’t you an angel?” he asks.

Bellarus’ eyes swivel back to him, staring at him like the answer’s obvious, but it’s-

Bucky wasn’t a saint, Steve knows that much, but he also wasn’t...He wouldn’t have become a demon, would he? He wouldn’t have gone to Hell, not like Steve was damn well on his way to going with how he felt. Bucky deserved to go to heaven, especially after everything.

“Bucky should’ve gone to heaven,” Steve says quietly, with conviction, feels Sam’s eyes on him too before the prickling sensation slides away, “He wouldn’t’ve become a demon.”

Bellarus looks away again, the underlying boredom still on his face but...something else Steve can’t decipher there, too. “Maybe he did,” is all Bellarus says, but whether he means Bucky did go to heaven or he did become a demon, Steve can’t tell. 

The silence fills the void again, and it hits Steve just how quiet it’s been.

 _There’s no animals_ , he thinks distantly. There’s nothing, not even the trees shifting in the low breeze lightly ruffling his hair. That dark place starts to pull him in again, that dark place with all the sharp teeth and knives and barbs, a faint ringing starting in his ears-

“Do you know where any Hydra bases might be?” Sam asks, breaking it, and Steve sucks in a quiet, shaky breath, closing his eyes tight for a moment.

“No,” Bellarus sighs again, the tension gone like it was never there. Steve didn’t notice it was there at all until the ringing stopped.

“Guess we keep walking until we hear from Romanoff,” Sam says, looking over at him.

Steve takes another breath and lets it out on a sigh, nodding. “Yeah,” he manages to say, “Guess we do.” Sam gives him a studying look and Steve makes himself start walking again, doesn’t want to know what he sees.

\--

There’s still no text from Natasha by the time night falls and they set up camp, of sorts. Between the two of them, Sam and Steve get a small, makeshift fire pit set up with rocks and fallen twigs and sticks and leaves. It smells like burning leaves and damp wood, but the light is enough to see their surroundings by and the crackling noises help take the edge of the silence off, and the warmth doesn’t hurt. The forest is still silent. Steve can’t tell if it’s just around them, or if the whole forest is afraid of Bucky- Bellarus. _Bellarus_.

Steve looks up at where Bellarus is standing sentry, the black of his cloak and boots and chains seemingly swallowing any nearby firelight. The fire had gutted at first when he was standing close, but at this distance, some warmth has started seeping back into Steve and their surroundings, and he and Sam hold their hands out to it in askance.

Eventually, after another half an hour, they decide to take shifts and Sam rolls onto his side to try and get some sleep, head pillowed on his lumpy duffel bag. Steve glances around at the forest, gaze slowly going unfocused. His ears start ringing again, faintly at first, and then a sharp crackle from the fire jolts him out if it, jumping slightly, eyes snapping down to the flames. He reaches over into his bag and pulls out his barely used sketchbook, sliding the mechanical pencil from the middle of the spiral rings and flipping the book open.

He’d gone on a rampage as soon as he was out of the hospital, throwing Bucky’s portrait and traits down on the pages in slashes and gentle, loving strokes, smoothing his finger over graphite to give him soft shadows, adding sharp presses to fill in his dark hair and hard eyes whenever he wasn’t looking for Bucky outside of his mind. Steve missed him, still misses him, and his pencil starts moving on its own, sketching out lines that haven’t changed much since 1945, familiar now under his hand, even with the changes.

He gets halfway through Bucky’s portrait, hair dark stark against the page and eyes left blank, white circles waiting to be filled, when he stops and flips the book closed, can’t stand filling in the strangeness of Bucky’s new eyes, and can’t stand looking at the blank circles that remind him of ghosts and apparitions and the dead, hollows screaming into the avoid. Steve slips his pencil back into the spiral binding and slides his sketchbook back into his duffel, drawing The Book out instead.

The cover is blank, only a single, black, five pointed pentagram in the middle of the spine on the outside, a neon stamp now that Steve knows what it’s for. It almost disappears against the dark brown leather, lines still crisp looking even though Steve thinks it has to be old. He hesitates with the book resting on his thigh, gripping the edge as he stares down at the blank leather cover. He glances over towards Bucky, just enough to see the back of his boots, still facing away from the fire like a statue, and then opens the book, scanning down the first page. It’s written in those same symbols or glyphs that had covered Bucky’s body when he’d been...punished? For trying to answer their questions (orders?).

“I still can’t read this,” Steve mumbles to himself, jolting a little when Bucky mumbles:

“Have you tried asking?”

Steve’s eyes snap up, staring at the back of Bucky’s head before dragging his eyes back down to the book. “Uhm,” he says quietly, thinking, “Please...translate into English?” he tries, voice lilting up on the end. The symbols _shimmer_ and then shift into English and Steve nearly throws the book off his lap, gripping the sides instead so it doesn’t end up in the fire. His wide eyes scan over the page and he blinks.

It’s in English, but it’s like it’s been translated. A lot of the sentences don’t read like they’re from this century, or the last, old words with triple meanings used instead of anything Steve’s heard or read in his lifetime. The page he’s looking at seems to have to do with...a plague? And he frowns a little, pausing before asking, trying, “Please take me to the page used to summon Bellarus?” He jolts again when the pages flip like they had in the cave, a nonexistent wind ripping through them until they stop halfway through the book, pages falling and settling into place, released from _whatever_ makes them do that. Steve takes a breath and scans over them, brows slowly drawing together.

There’s mentions of blood sacrifices, twelve people for the demon’s name written in-

Steve stares, eyes tracing over the jagged lines.

It’s...Bucky’s name, written in blood.

‘ _James Buchanan Barnes_ ’

But it’s not written in Bucky’s hand. The lettering is more slanted, a cursive that remains tight all the way through. The blood is dried and old, Steve thinks, but sits on the page almost like ink.

He slowly drags his eyes down. There’s talk of a Summoning Conduit, at least he thinks, something about an ‘element stone’. Like Earth? Green stone, cyan markings, blue-green eyes; the cavern was deep in the earth.

Steve frowns again, pausing at the bottom passage. It looks like a warning:

‘ _A soul is sold and traded in, and at the end it will be rend. The demon summoned will gain twice, the poor soul sold will pay the price. Before then shall be granted treasure, the soul’s owner damned forever._

 _Heed thy warning passing soul, for there is a way to break both’s hold. Meet and knock Fate’s door thrice, face the stare of the Cockatrice_ ’

Steve’s brows tangle together. 

Is that translated right? And- 

“A riddle,” he mutters, frowning harder.

“The devil likes his games,” Bellarus says quietly, barely above a whisper, and Steve jerks his head up, shuddering as a cold chill sweeps up his spine that he can’t place the origin of. Bellarus turns his head enough to look back down over his shoulder, blue-green eye blazing in the night like a will-o’-the-wisp.

Steve forces his eyes back down, ends up trailing them halfway down the pitch of Bucky’s cloak before getting them back on the page. “Do you know what it means?” He hears a sigh and looks back up.

Bellarus is looking back out at the forest, not quite fully turned away yet. “Every demon knows what it means, until they don’t,” he answers, making Steve’s brows draw together again, “I cannot answer.”

“So I’m left at the gate to answer the sphinx myself,” Steve surmises, lips twisting a little bitterly. 

Bellarus glances back at him again before looking back out at the forest. “We are all alone, in the end,” he says, so quietly Steve’s not sure if he was meant to hear it. He wouldn’t have, if his hearing wasn’t so good. But if Bu- Bellarus knew that, then he would have known Steve would hear him.

‘ _We’re all alone in the end_ ’. Was Bucky?

Steve pulls in a slow breath and forces himself to focus back on the book. 

He stays up throughout his whole shift trying to skim the book and think over the riddle, partly to avoid the dark spaces in his head waiting for him to be vulnerable, until Sam’s phone pings and Sam wakes up to trade places. Steve doesn’t want to sleep, but he trades a look with Sam, whose eyebrows rise, and puts the book away, making himself turn on his side and rest his head on his own duffel. He shifts, eyes catching on the black chains hanging down near Bucky’s ankles, and rolls away onto his other side when another chill slithers up his spine, curling up. He makes himself close his eyes, if only because staring out into the dark makes him feel even colder.


	3. Follow the White Rabbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I keep forgetting to do this I have the memory of a fish! fjdsil. THANK YOU RESIN FOR LOOKING OVER THESE. I really appreciate it. Sorry I kept forgetting to say that. It'd usually be a day after and by that point it's just _pfft_ gone until I remember like 6 hours later and facepalm jfdsl. But your enthusiasm always inspires me and I really appreciate you looking these over when you feel up to it.  <3 Thank you very much. <3

Steve wakes with a gasp four hours later, the gray of early morning light just starting to encroach and stretch its morning fog across the night sky, stars slowly disappearing back into the light. He shivers again and sits up, rolling his neck and trying to stretch out his shoulders, force the darkness in his head, his chest- away. He focuses on the warmth of the fire against his side, the remnants of it slowly fading from his back, the quickly fading aches in his muscles and joints from the angle his neck was at. He forces himself to, he has to. 

He looks up and Bucky’s still standing where he was, but Sam’s digging his toothbrush out of his bag and squirting toothpaste onto it. Sam doesn’t say anything about the way Steve woke up, neither does Bucky, and Steve digs his own toothpaste out, then tosses Sam a granola bar. 

“You don’t sleep, do you,” Sam says after he spits toothpaste into a nearby bush, and Steve freezes in his brushing before he realizes Sam’s looking at Buck- Bellarus.

Bellarus turns a little, but doesn’t look back at them. “No,” he answers, then, “No one spotted in the woods.”

Steve stares then spits into the nearest bush. He hadn’t realized- “Not ever?” he asks.

“No,” Bellarus repeats, sighing quietly like it takes it out of him to, like he’s answered this question a hundred times. Maybe he has, for all any of them know.

Steve’s phone pings and he drags his eyes and thoughts away, puts his toothbrush and toothpaste back in their bag and digs his phone out of his duffel, and turns the screen on to look. “Coordinates,” he says to both of them, pushing himself up to his feet and zipping his bag up before checking the wifi. “We’ll need to get out of the forest for me to check the location, but I think it might be somewhere near Moscow.”

“You tell her about him yet?” Sam asks, standing too and moving onto the granola bar, nodding over to Bu- Bellarus.

Steve shakes his head, pocketing his phone and shouldering his bag before kicking dirt over the fire, watching it sputter out. “No. Not something I want to send over a line.”

Sam nods and shoulders his bag, and Steve looks over at Bellarus, who’s _still_ staring out at the forest.

 _What would Natasha say, anyway? If she knew_ , he wonders, quiet in his own head, _What would they all say?_ He can barely wrap his own head around any of the past day, is just trying to stay afloat above it all, focus on the day to day so it doesn’t drag him back down into the depths just yet, the impossibility clashing with reality. He doesn’t really have much room to imagine what the others would do or try to plan for it.

Steve drags himself away from the thoughts and turns to start walking, glancing back to make sure Bu- Bellarus is following. Steve’s not sure he’ll ever be able to not think of him as Bucky, no matter the changes.

\--

“Maybe we’re going about this wrong,” Steve says after five minutes of walking. Sam looks over with a questioning look. Steve looks over at Bellarus. “I order you free.”

Bellarus looks over at him. Nothing seems to...happen.

“I _wish_ you free?” Steve tries.

“He’s not a genie, man,” Sam mutters.

Steve’s brows draw together.

Bellarus looks ahead again, sighing quietly. “You read the inscription.”

“Worth a try,” Steve says quietly, looking ahead again too.

“Wait. What inscription?” Sam asks, eyes swinging over.

“There was an inscription in the book on Buc- Bellarus’ page,” Steve quickly amends, glancing just as quickly over at Bellarus, who doesn’t look back, “Warned about ‘selling my soul’ and how to get it back, but the translation was...strange.”

Sam’s eyebrows jump up. “It’s in English now?”

“Yeah, I...asked it to be,” Steve answers.

Sam’s eyebrows leap up higher, steps slowing to a stop. “You _asked_ it to.”

Steve shrugs helplessly while coming to a stop too, and Sam closes his eyes with a sigh, rubbing at the inner corners with his fingers. “How is this my life?” he asks.

Steve sighs and looks ahead again, glancing at Bellarus. 

_How is this **his?**_ he wonders.

“What was the inscription?” Sam asks, lowering his hand.

“Something about ‘Fate’s door’ and a Cockatrice,” Steve answers. Sam throws him a look and Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he returns, dragging his eyes over to Bellarus, “I don’t know.”

\--

It takes a couple more hours to reach the end of where they’re at in the forest, Steve forcing himself to think over the past few days in detail to try to keep his mind from falling into the dark, and then they start heading down the road to, hopefully, the nearest town. That takes them another hour, but once they’re just outside of one, there’s enough of a wifi signal for Steve to check the coordinates. They do point to somewhere outside of Moscow, somewhere that looks quiet. He and Sam start discussing travel options before the elephant in the room finally hits Steve upside the head to make itself known again.

His eyes shift to Bellarus and he frowns thoughtfully, looking him over while he tries to think. “I’m going to go buy something,” he decides, pulling his wallet out of his bag and slipping it into his pant’s pocket before setting his bag on the ground, “I’ll be back.”

He jogs into town. It takes him five minutes to find what he’s looking for, but once he’s got them, he tears the tags off and tosses them away before jogging back. He stops near Bellarus and offers the items out.

“Please wear these?” Steve asks, trying not to word it as an order. It’s bad enough that he’s _bound_ Bucky to him, apparently, like _Hydra_ -

Steve forces the thought to stop and watches Bellarus look down at his hands and tilt his head slightly, but after a moment, he reaches down. 

He slips the sunglasses on first, then pulls the black beanie hat on over his head and looks at Steve (presumably). Steve tried to find the thickest black sunglasses he could, and they seem to be doing the job of covering up Bellarus’ eye glow pretty well. There’s still a faint hint of it in them, but in the daylight especially, no one will be able to tell unless they’re really, really looking.

He shudders a little and nods, then reaches down to grab his duffel again before looking to Sam for approval.

Sam just stares between the two of them before shaking his head and sighing. “So how are we getting there?”

They take a bus out of the town, then another out of the next one, then one more until they can catch a train. Bucky- Bellarus gets a few stares, but mostly everyone seems to keep to themselves in the early morning, more than half the passengers on the first two buses asleep in their seats or against the windows. Steve loses the wifi again so he can’t try looking up the inscription, so he forces himself to try and pick it apart on his own instead. 

And if he ends up spending most of the time berating and beating himself with the guilt over what he’s done, neither Sam nor Bellarus, seem to notice. It’s better, Steve thinks, than facing the enormity of what Bellarus told them. Angels? Demons? _God?_ He’d rather lash himself with guilt than face the possibility that those might be real, that Bucky might have really gone to Hell because of him. 

He can feel the black pit still waiting at the edges of his mind, almost like Hell’s ready to swallow him up too, as cold and lurking as the cold in his chest, waiting for the right moment to steal the breath from him. Filled with all the sharp things he’s been trying to avoid thinking about, layered over with the sound of Bucky’s falling scream.

 _I’d deserve it_ , he thinks, looking over at Bellarus, then dragging his eyes away to look out the window, _I deserve it_.

\--

Steve tries to settle into their train car, ends up pulling out his sketchbook again while Sam takes a nap and Bellarus stares out the window. Steve subtly glances up every so often to try and sketch him. It’s easier when he doesn’t have to draw his eyes, nor has to leave them white blanks.

Steve... _wants_ to talk to him, but every time he tries to come up with something to ask or say, his mind draws a blank and he’s left staring at the side of his face until he forces his eyes back down to his sketchbook.

They get off in Moscow, then quickly, quietly make their way back out of the city towards the coordinates. It’s still early Spring and Steve’s body tells him it should be colder, but it isn’t. They take a bus, then another, then have to walk the last ten miles. For this, at least, Steve’s glad it’s not Winter.

They find the base, which is another old building, this one out in the middle of nowhere. It looks like an abandoned boarding school, or maybe some sort of old facility. There’s wood boards up on all of the windows and the building itself is an old grey slab against an even older blue sky, sat in a field of short, blooming, yellow and violet flowers. It’s...strange, the dichotomy of the scene and the knowledge of what’s probably inside, who’s probably inside, versus where it’s at, not-quite grotesque.

No alarms sound that Steve can hear when they get closer, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t guarded. They change into their uniforms right there, Steve’s cheeks warming a little and his stomach giving a small roil when he feels more than Sam’s gaze. But he keeps his own eyes on what he’s doing, trying to be quick about it. They’re done in under three minutes, but Steve still lets out a quiet, relieved breath after he gets his helmet strap buckled in.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Smash and grab?” Sam asks, checking his guns.

“Going to have to be,” Steve agrees, then looks to Bellarus, hesitating. Should he…ask for help? Order Bellarus away? “What do you want to do, Bellarus?” he settles on slowly, making sure to use the name he wanted.

Bellarus tilts his head a fraction, facing the building. “No one has ever asked,” he says quietly, and Steve’s stomach tightens. “I’ll let you know.”

Steve blinks and then Bellarus is gone, and then he hears something _crash_ and _shatter_ inside the building just before an alarm sounds, head snapping forward.

“Guess that’s the signal,” Sam says, and they both start running. 

Steve charges the front double doors with his shield, bowling into them and sending them bursting off their hinges with a loud _crash_ and _whine_ of metal. Sam sticks to his six, shooting the first agent that comes yelling down the stairwell on the right. Steve hears another crash upstairs and manages a glance at Sam before more agents seem to flood in from above and...somewhere, stealing their attentions.

Steve charges into them to the sound of Sam’s gunfire, but their fighting patterns are...strange, almost like they’re not attacking but running _from_ something. _Bellarus?_ Steve wonders distantly, but focuses back on the mission.

Between him and Sam, nonexistent, erratic fighting patterns or not, they take care of every agent that comes their way until the flow starts to trickle. Steve distantly becomes aware of the silence upstairs, no grunts or yells or screams, just _thuds_ and _crashes_ and something like metal punching into cement, gunfire strangely absent. He corners the last agent around and pushes him into the wall, keeping him pinned with his shield.

“What is this facility for?” Steve demands. The agent just keeps squirming, as wriggly as a fish out of water, eyes wide and wild, only landing on Steve’s face briefly before they’re squeezing shut and he’s trying to break free, grunting with the effort. His breathing’s escalated, Steve notes, shallow and quick. 

“Take a breath,” Sam orders.

But the agent just keeps wriggling, grunts getting louder and quickly turning into nonsensical yells. Steve pulls back and rams his shield into the agent, steps back and lets him drop to the floor. He looks over at Sam, brows drawn together.

Sam shakes his head, giving a small shrug.

Things are quiet upstairs, so Steve signals towards the stairs and they start making their way over-

They both jerk to a sharp stop when Bellarus reappears in front of them as if he’d been standing there the whole time.

“You’re okay?” Steve breathes, still trying to calm his damn heart.

“Yes,” Bellarus replies, “Upstairs is clear.”

“All of it?” Sam checks.

“Yes,” Bellarus replies flatly. 

Sam looks towards the ceiling, taking a breath, and Steve tries to get them back on task.

“Can you tell if there’s any sublevels?” he asks.

“Three,” Bellarus answers.

Steve blinks but looks to Sam and nods.

After some looking, they find the entrance in the floor, a long, large panel that slides back when Steve pulls the large, heavy bookshelf against the back wall aside. No dust kicks up so it must be well used, or at least recently used, and yellowed lights line the way down every five steps on both walls. They all share a look and start walking down, Steve in the lead, Bellarus in the middle, and Sam watching the rear. After five minutes they reach the first landing, the hall opening up onto a large floor with three hallways, doors down both sides of the one ahead.

They start down the left hall together, slowly working their way across to the right one. The yellowed bars of lights above make the bare cement halls look almost warm, but they’re empty, devoid of any sound. The rooms are well used, but they focus on clearing them first to make sure the place is empty and devoid of any traps. There’s file folders stacked on desks, briefcases standing at attention against the sides of them, readouts for things Steve’s doesn’t know, laptops, some with black screens, some with colored screensavers, others with files open that Steve only takes a glance at. There don’t seem to be any traps so far, but they all keep their eyes peeled.

They clear the floor before moving onto the next one, leaving the papers and computers untouched, heading down the stairwell at the end of the middle hall. The next floor is much the same, though this one seems to have a medical wing, clean, white padded tables lying unused, red crosses on medical kits standing out like neon flares dotting the rooms, a sink and hazardous material bin with slashing black symbols. But overall it’s not much different from the previous, just as empty and silent, and the three of them head down the next stairwell, Bucky’s radiated cold lightly brushing along Steve’s back left.

The next floor is different.

There’s doors lined either side of the hall straight ahead, that strange symbol from the first base Steve and Sam investigated marking them, little square windows at eye height. Steve looks back and shares a glance with Sam while Bellarus cocks his head slightly. Steve shakes his head a little and looks forward again, and they start walking. They do a sweep of the floor first before coming back to the cells and looking inside.

There’s...things in these ones, many more than the first base. They’re humanoid in shape, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Their skin is a dark grey, almost black, all of them chained up like the others, wrists and ankles spread apart, heads hanging with a chain going up from the collars around their necks, attached to the ceiling like a spread eagle star. Some of them have sharp nails, like Bucky, others have...claws. They’re not as emaciated as the last ones, but their bodies are still...warped, stomachs concave and ribcages too barrel and large to be human. Some of them even have long, black, whip-smooth tails that pool on the dirty and dried blood covered ground, wound like a snake’s or maybe an eel’s. Steve can’t see a full shot of any of their faces, but from what he _can_ see, none of them are really human. Some of them have obvious _snouts_ , some cross between a wolf and one of those raptor things from a movie Natasha told him to watch, and others look...like they grew too big for the head they’re in, deformed shapes weighing them down.

“I count ten,” Sam reports quietly.

Steve nods, still looking into room nine-

The creature’s head jerks up and it _screeches_ and Steve jerks back, shield up and eyes wide. He hears Sam come running over and they both stare as it snaps its maw, teeth too large for its face and eyes red points in between its greasy, lanky bangs draped down its face. It jerks sharply against the chains and _shrieks_ while its tail lashes sharply against the ground.

“Lesser demons,” comes Bucky’s voice from his left and Steve jerks again, head whipping around as he drags his eyes away.

“‘Lesser demons’?” he asks quietly, making himself take a slow breath to try and calm the adrenaline spike.

Bellarus stares into the room while the shrieks continue, and Steve stares at the blue-green eye he can see from his profile around the glasses, a shudder tingling up his spine at the sounds coming from the room. “Beings without thought and higher conscience. They travel in swarms and are only good for tearing things apart,” Bellarus explains calmly.

Steve blinks and drags his eyes forward again.

“Like ‘legion’?” Sam asks.

“No,” Bellarus answers, “That would be all of us.”

Steve’s eyes swivel back to him. Bellarus reaches up and takes his sunglasses off, eyes flaring brighter and the shrieking stops, Steve’s eyes snapping back forward. The- Lesser Demon has its head mostly bowed, red eyes focused presumably on Bellarus while it tries to curl in on itself, jerking against the chains while its tail slithers up and wraps tightly around its leg. It starts writhing in place, pulling and straining at the chains, then throws its head back and _shrieks_ , high pitched and ear piercing before its _ **head explodes**_ , and Steve jumps as the blood splatters the room and window, blurring the decapitated body black-red that slowly slides down the viewing window like thick oil.

Steve’s wide eyes dart back over to Bellarus just in time to see him slip his sunglasses back on. “What did you do?” he asks, throat dry.

Bellarus stares into the room another moment. “What I wanted,” he returns, then turns and starts walking down the hall, practically gliding like he always does, never quite human. 

Steve and Sam stare after him, Sam’s eyes nearly as wide as Steve’s own.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sam whispers.

Steve opens his mouth a little- then closes it, pressing his lips together. 

He doesn’t know.

A door slams closed at the other end of the hall and both their heads jerk up, running over. Bellarus is standing in front of it, still as a statue.

“What is it?” Steve asks quietly, attention focusing again as he raises his shield and gets into position.

“I cannot enter this room,” Bellarus quietly grits out.

Steve’s eyes dart over sharply and then he looks to Sam, both of them looking back to the door. Steve raises his hand a little and silently counts off, charging the door with his shield on the end of three. He stumbles when the door caves in as easy as all the rest, and hears three shouts instead of gunfire. He peeks up over his shield and pauses, taking in the white lab coats, two pairs of glasses, and three pairs of frightened eyes. They’re scientists, cowering together in the corner of the office.

Steve takes a step closer and they yell.

One of them shouts: “ _Which is it! Which!_ ”

While the other two shout something in Russian.

Steve frowns. “Which is what? Who are you? What is this facility?”

“Which is it!” the one shouts again, an older man with a hair bordered, balled head, crescent moon glasses slid down on his long nose.

“Which is _what?_ ” Steve demands.

The older man points past him at- Bellarus, then shouts again, “Glasses! Off!”

Steve leans back a little, eyebrows drawn together with a frown. He looks back at Sam and then Bellarus and nods. Bellarus takes his sunglasses off and the older man blows out a breath.

“Not the terrible one,” he mumbles. The other two seem to relax a fraction at that too, a younger woman with long brown hair in a ponytail and round glasses on her face, and a younger man with wild black hair.

“‘Terrible one’?” Steve asks. He seems to be doing that a lot lately, and it’s starting to get frustrating, the distinct _lack_ of important information.

The older man’s eyes focus on him, and then he starts _laughing_ hysterically, saying something in Russian in between. The younger woman and man look at Steve, eyes wide as they shift back and forth between him and Bellarus, shoulders stiffening. The younger woman smacks the older man on the arm and the man’s laughs choke to a stop, head dropping as he shakes with them, tears at the corners of his eyes.

“ _Y-you_ are his master?” the older man manages to get out, pushing his glasses up as he wipes at his eyes under them.

Steve frowns harder and doesn’t say anything, and the older man starts... _chuckling_ almost uncontrollably. The younger woman smacks his arm a few times and hisses something to him in Russian before he finally stops, her wide eyes still on them.

“He cannot enter. It is fine,” the older man says, lowering his hand and looking back up, but the younger woman and man don’t look reassured.

Steve frowns and glances back again, then pauses when he notices the... _symbols_ written around the doorframe, the same type as the book and the cells. He even spots the one from the cells in the mess of it. They’re written messily, like it was done quick. He looks back.

“These symbols...are keeping him out?” Steve asks slowly.

All three of the scientist’s faces drain of color. Answer enough.

Steve turns and raises his shield before they all start clamoring with “ _Nonono!_ ” and “ _Stop! Stop! We will answer!_ ” Steve turns back to look at them, at their wide, fearful eyes and hands outstretched towards him. They lower them when he doesn’t move, practically collapsing back into the corner.

“Facility is for experiment,” the old man grits, dragging grudging eyes up, “To perfect summoning.”

“For Lesser Demons?” Steve asks.

Their eyes widen and they look to each other and start muttering, and Steve raises his shield higher with a, “ _Hey!_ ”

Their eyes dart back as they quiet.

“No,” the older man grounds out, “We...were trying to summon something stronger. Like him.” He nods his chin to Bellarus and Steve waits. His English is almost fluent, tinged heavily in his accent.

“He is...hard summon,” the woman explains haltingly, stiltedly, accent just as heavy, “Doctor Zola only manage one.” Her eyes dart to Bellarus nervously and Steve’s eyes widen a little.

“ _When?_ ” he demands.

Her eyes snap back and her shoulders twitch. “1944,” she answers, “He complete in 1945.”

Steve straightens as his eyes widen, realization lighting across his thoughts like an arctic sun. He forces the swirling mass to still, trying to stay focused. He doesn’t need to ask why they’re doing what they’re doing, the answer’s always the same, but he does want to ask- “The book. Where did you find it?”

Their eyes widen again and they glance to each other. The older man answers roughly, “Schmidt. He found it buried in Belarus, in ancient cave.”

 _The cave we destroyed_ , Steve thinks. “The symbols. What language is that?”

They all shake their heads. “Do not know,” the woman answers quietly, “Very old, maybe oldest. No record.”

“It predates anything we know of,” the older man answers.

Steve glances back at Bellarus and Sam. Sam nods his chin and Steve looks back. “What did you mean by ‘terrible one’?” he asks.

Their eyes all widen again and dart to Bellarus. Sam makes a low sound behind him and Steve glances back, eyes dropping to the chains- _shifting_ and _swirling_ down by Bellarus’ ankles. He looks up, but Bellarus’ face is as still as stone, eyes focused like laser points on the three scientists. 

_He doesn’t want them to answer?_

“There is-” the older man starts, then Steve’s head whips around when he hears him choke and gasp, gagging as his blood sprays out around the scissors embedded in his throat, wide eyes on Steve as he struggles to grasp at- the young man’s arm, _his_ eyes wide and teeth gritted.

“ _Hey!_ ” Steve lets out, darting forward a step before stopping. It’s too late. The younger man jerks back and throws his bloody hands up, wild eyes focused past Steve’s shoulder.

“He doesn’t want us to tell,” the man says, accent the thickest of the three of them. His hands are trembling.

Steve looks back over his shoulder at Bellarus again, who’s still looking at them, and glances down to find the chains have stilled. Steve and Sam share a frown, Sam taking a slow step further away from Bellarus and closer to the doorframe, and Steve looks back at the older man. His eyes are already going glassy, skin paling white as a sheet as his blood flow goes sluggish as it runs down his dark shirt, staining it darker and covering his lab coat red. The woman’s staring, wide and empty eyed while the younger man’s arms sink down a bit, whole body trembling and teeth chattering. 

They’re terrified of Bellarus, or is it something else?

Sam’s steps creep forward until Steve sees him in his periphery. “What do we do with them?” he asks quietly.

There’s not much they _can_ do with them.

Steve turns and slices into the symbols around the doorframe. They flare cyan like Bellarus’ eyes and then fade, looking...flatter, somehow. Bellarus steps forward into the room, walking over. The chains about his ankles lift and before Steve or Sam can say anything, pierce through the eyes of both the younger man and woman and into the wall behind them with a sharp _crack_ , pinning them to it until they jerk sharply back out. The chains drift back down to his ankles, blood dripping from them to the floor while the bodies slouch and slide down, tilted towards each other like fallen ruins.

Steve looks over and sees the disgusted look on Sam’s face, sees him aim it at the side of Bellarus’ face.

“They would have returned to the others,” Bellarus says calmly, walking forward. He stops in front of the bodies, lifting a foot and pushing them aside like children’s stuffed animals sitting in the way. Their blood smears across the cement wall and they all collapse over like toppled dominos. “There is a passage here.”

Steve straightens, swallows, and walks forward, keeps himself from edging around Bellarus, who’s right, there is a faint line in the cement. Bellarus steps aside and Steve pulls his arm back, ramming his shield into it. The cement splinters, then cracks, and he keeps it up until a chunk falls forward, jerking back a little as a loud, hollow whisper chases the cement dust into the room from the one beyond. A chill prickles down Steve’s spine and he looks back at Sam, who swallows and slowly steps closer, frowning hard at the bodies discarded on the floor.

Steve looks forward and rams his shield again, makes the hole bigger and bigger until it becomes a crude doorway, dropping his eyes to the floor.

It’s made of that same black gem-rock stone as the first cavern where they found Bucky’s body, but instead of interwoven green, it’s red, darker than a ruby.

“Great. Another Hell cave,” Sam mutters. 

Steve looks over and gives him an apologetic look, but Sam just shakes his head and digs a flashlight out of his belt, Steve moving to do the same. They shine their lights down the single stairwell, but it’s just black as far as they can see.

“Yeah. Just great,” Sam mutters darkly.

Steve sighs and steps over the rubble, leading the way down.

The sound is just as distorted here as the last one, red sparkling in the black on the stairs and walls and ceiling as they drift their flashlights around. Steve tries to time it, and this stairwell seems to go down further than the last one, and doesn’t curve. When they do finally reach a plateau, it opens up into a room, steel tables and large flood lights catching in their flashlight beams, black straight ahead. Steve and Sam both walk over to turn a couple of the flood lights on, blinking into the sudden light and turning their flashlights off. They both jolt a little when they get a better look at the room, mouths dropping open as their eyes roam around.

They’re on a plateau, large and jagged from the stone and rock, but it only extends about twenty feet before dropping off into a huge, dome-like room, even bigger than the last one. There’s carved out stairs to the left and a metal lift installed straight ahead at the edge of the platform.

Sam walks over to a set of switches and a mass of large cables to the left against the wall and presses the green one, and the whole room lights up. They walk to the end of the platform and look. 

Flood lights are set up around the room below, hitting the walls and making the ruby shine in all the black. The room itself is as big as half a football field. There’s a set of black circles that take up almost the whole floor, getting smaller and smaller until the middle like a bullseye, _filled_ with those strange symbols, moons, stars, suns, planets. It’s...overwhelming to try and process all at once, and Steve has to look away and blink a couple times, shaking his head. Bellarus’ black form steps into his periphery and Steve looks up. It’s almost surreal to look at him; he almost blends in completely with their surroundings save for his eyes.

“They tried to summon the devil here,” he says quietly.

Steve’s and Sam’s eyes widen.

“You mean the actual…?” Sam trails off, clearing his throat quietly when it comes out rough.

“This room is made of blood and stone, the same stone formed when he landed on Earth,” Bellarus says, still quiet and...Steve’s not sure what it is about his voice, but it sends a chill down his spine.

“Wait,” Steve says, thoughts starting to work again, “‘Blood and’...? This red color is-?”

“His blood,” Bellarus answers, dragging his eyes over. They seem brighter than usual.

“Well that’s…” Sam trails off, looking paler.

Steve swallows, caught in Bellarus’ stare. Bellarus looks away and Steve pulls in a breath, feels like he can breathe a little again.

“We should destroy it,” Bellarus says.

“I can’t let you do that.”

Their eyes all snap to the ground where a man in black is standing below with glowing orange eyes. He presses the detonator in his hand and an explosion goes off behind them, sending them forward, and the platform comes crashing down.


	4. Red as the devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have chapter 6 quite done yet bc I got sucked abruptly back into an old, rarepair fandom and I am in despair trying to binge minimal content but I don't want to keep you guys waiting on me either so here's a chapter.

Something wraps around Steve’s arm, leg, and waist and he manages to get out a, “ _Save Sam!_ ” before he jerks to a hard stop mid-fall, chains digging into him, hears Sam let out a harsh grunt somewhere up to his left. The sound of the platform hitting the ground and breaking apart is deafening, and Steve can’t hear anything as it reverberates off-key around the cavern. He can just make out a black figure in the rubble dust where he’s hanging upside down, vision slowly righting itself as he’s turned and then quickly lowered to rocky ground, knees just a little wobbly before he gets oriented again. He sees Sam make his way over, looking a little shaky and shocked himself.

“You okay?” Steve asks low, and Sam stares at him a moment before squeezing his eyes shut and giving himself a shake, nodding as he pulls his guns out.

“Where is he?” Sam asks, just as quiet.

A jaunty, whistled tune starts up, echoing strangely off the walls and they both look around, Steve looking for the source and for Bellarus. He doesn’t have to look long, Bellarus coming out of the drifting dust to his right and taking up position at his side, crumbled rubble from the outcropping of plateau they were on in pieces at their backs.

“Do you know who it is?” Steve asks quietly, frowning a little at Bellarus’ pinched expression.

“A problem,” he answers quietly, all their heads whipping around when the whistling cuts off with a bark of laughter.

" _You always did have the most humor of the lot of them_ ,” comes the man’s voice, echoing around the cavern like his whistling was. “ _Did I tell you about my new Master? Named me ‘Rumlow’, of all fuckin’ things_. _Got a little more humor than the last one. Guess it’s better than ‘Ifrit’_.”

“What do you want?” Steve calls out.

“ _‘Want’?_ ” the man’s voice calls back, “ _Shit, if I could have what I **wanted** , I wouldn’t be here. Then again, it is always nice to see a familiar face in this pile of shit job_.”

Steve frowns, quickly putting the pieces together. “Who sent you?”

“ _Master, my Master_ ,” the man sing-songs cryptically, “ _Speaking of, is **this** him?_ ”

Steve frowns further, eyes darting around as he tries to find the man- demon? _Something_. But the rubble dust is still drifting, fogging up the cavern even though there’s no wind, which doesn’t make sense. But, that’s been this mission so far, from day one. That question didn’t sound like it was for him either, and when he looks over, Bellarus’ expression is taut, shoulders stiff.

“ _It **is**_ ,” the man says.

 _He can see us?_ Steve wonders. It’s hard to tell, since he can’t apply human logic to it. The...demon, could have x-ray vision for all they know.

“ _Hell, only took you 680 years. Could’ve been eternity_.”

Steve looks to Bellarus sharply at that, eyes widened a little. ‘680 years’?

Bellarus doesn’t look back, glowing eyes slowly scanning the room until they come to a stop somewhere off to the right.

“Who is your master now?” Bellarus asks.

“ _I don’t bind and tell_ ,” the man teases back.

“Yes you do,” Bellarus returns.

“You’re right,” comes from straight ahead.

Steve and Sam jerk back as a black blade comes cutting through the dust, three of Bellarus’ chains coming up to block it. The blade pushes harder, the demon’s sharp grinning face and glowing orange eyes materializing through the fog one black piece at a time like Bellarus’ clothes had, the black fading into skin down from his jaw to his neck until it disappears into a black turtleneck.

Sam lifts his gun and fires and the bullet embeds itself into his temple, the wound healing over in seconds. The demon spits the bullet out, eyes shifting sharply to Sam. He grins wider, teeth like a dog’s, like Bellarus’. “You wanna play too? Or should I drop you out of the sky like your pal Riley without a parachute.”

Sam’s eyes widen and the blood drains from his face before he’s firing again, emptying his clip before Steve can grip his wrist. It clicks empty and Steve looks back, throwing up his shield just in time to stop the blade aimed for Sam’s face. More chains come up and wrap around the demon’s wrist, forcing it back. The man- demon laughs.

“Come _on_ ,” the demon taunts, “Bring him out and let him play. It’s been _ages_.”

Bellarus’ eyes narrow and orange ones slant to Steve, widening a fraction.

“ _Aww_ , ain’t that sweet,” the demon coos, looking back to Bellarus, “You don’t want him to _know_.”

Bellarus forces the demon back with a sharp sound and then takes off after him, both disappearing into the fog of dust to the sound of the demon’s rough laugh.

Steve doesn’t hear anything after that, which is more unnerving than it would be if he _was_ hearing fighting. He drags his eyes over to Sam, reaching over slow and gripping his shoulder tight with his free hand. Sam jolts, hazy eyes snapping to focus on his face, and Steve slowly lets go of his wrist. “Are you okay?” Steve asks slowly.

Sam stares at him for a long moment before closing his eyes and forcing a short shake of his head. Steve nods and grips his shoulder tighter, can feel the tension under his hand.

Wind kicks up and both their heads snap around, looking out into the cavern. Steve doesn’t hear anything, but he sees it, sees the debris dust get sucked towards the center of the room before gradually disappearing altogether, leaving the room clear and- the black tornado with the chains in it visible, green-blue light in the center and between the black whirls, fluctuating brightly.

There’s another...creature there, crashing against it as they silently whirl around the room, that looks like it’s just...a sharp, jagged black shape, similar in shape to the tornado in that it’s wider at the top with a jagged, blade shape for a head, and comes to a razor sharp point at the bottom. They whirl, too jagged and darting around too quick even for Steve to fully keep up with, and every time they _crash_ , Steve sees their _human_ forms silhouetted by the bright clash of blue-green and orange.

They leap apart, landing on feet instead of black masses.

Bellarus’ hair is a mess and he’s got a long cut up the side of his neck to his cheekbone, gaping black and cyan where blood and meat would be. The other demon has a few gashes too, filled with black and bright orange, like embers. The demon grins, smile stretching just a little wider than his mouth should be capable of, enough that Steve has a hard time looking at him.

“Quit _stal-ling_ ,” the demon drawls.

Bellarus lowers his head a little, gaze fixed, and the demon sighs, smile vanishing like it was never there and ember eyes shifting to pin Steve in place. He’s gone in a flash and then Steve’s got a blade to his throat, eyes widening as he freezes. Bellarus’ eyes snap over, wide and _furious_ , the color of them flickering too quick for Steve to catch.

“Quit holding out on me,” the demon growls next to his ear, sending a shiver down Steve’s spine even though he’s- he radiates heat like Bellarus radiates cold, so hot along Steve’s back that it’s starting to make him sweat already beneath his uniform. “You know what I want. Let him out,” the demon growls again while Steve tries to figure out what to do. He’s not fast enough to prevent his throat getting cut. Bellarus could heal him if he doesn’t die, probably, but there’s no one alive in the area that Steve knows of except Sam, and Steve’s not trading Sam’s life for his own. Bellarus might not even be _able_ to get to him in time to do anything with this demon here.

Sam shifts in his periphery and then he’s got a blade at his throat too, coming out of the demon’s back like another appendage, the demon aiming a warning snarl back over his shoulder. A few strands of black bangs shift to hang over his forehead out of his undercut.

Steve looks back at Bellarus and their eyes meet, Bellarus’ brows drawn low together. His slitted eyes shift quickly back and forth between Steve’s and the demon’s, and then he closes them, squeezing them shut as his fingers curl-

Then he seems to...let go, body relaxing and fingers uncurling in one fluid motion. His eyes open and they’re...red.

Then he’s gone.

A wind _whistles_ past Steve’s ear and then the blade is gone just before a loud _CRASH_ behind him, the demon’s rough laughter starting up again, _joyous_ and victorious. Steve whips around as the demon lets out, “ _ **THERE** YOU ARE_.”

Bellarus throws the demon towards the center of the room and arcs up into the air like he’s got wings, then comes plummeting down like a _comet_. The other demon’s hands turn into two long, wicked, black blades and he launches himself up just before Bellarus’ feet connect with his abdomen, running Bellarus through the stomach. Bellarus doesn’t make a sound, just _twists_ , nearly tearing his body completely in half on the blades as black blood sprays across the floor, bending his upper half down to wrap his hand around the demon’s throat, jabbing the other hand’s fingers towards his eyes- The demon grips his wrist with a manic grin and Bellarus’ nails extend, sharp black points burying themselves in his wild eyes. The demon _screams_ , but he’s _**laughing**_ too.

“Isn’t this _fun?_ ” the demon laughs, pulling his second blade out and then stabbing it through the mending black and glowing red of Bellarus’ stomach, black blade coming out the other side.

Bellarus still doesn’t make a sound, just stabs his nails forward until they come out the back of the demon’s skull, black blood gushing out around his fingers and spraying the floor behind the demon’s head. Bellarus pulls his nails out with a spray of black streaking up the side of his face and grips the demon’s head, pounding it back against the floor over and _over and over_. The demon keeps laughing, even when Steve hears the back of his skull shatter and sees his black brains and white bone fragments scatter across the floor, the sound of his laughter going warped and raspy as Bellarus squeezes hard enough to start crushing his neck.

It sounds like air through bones, and Steve starts feeling nauseous, is vaguely aware of the sound of Sam retching somewhere behind him.

“We can do this forever,” the demon rasps.

Bellarus pulls back, eyes filling completely red as he starts chanting. The whole room glows red between all the black, pulsing in time with the words. The demon below him starts scrambling at Bellarus’ arms, nails shredding and tearing into his clothes and skin, a mess of black and colors.

“What are you doing?” the demon rasps, voice growing stronger the more his throat repairs, “What are you doing _don’t spoil this for me!_ ”

Bellarus keeps chanting and the room starts glowing bright enough Steve has to squint, stomach rolling as the air seems to _waver_ and sound starts getting sucked out. Bellarus’ voice starts sounding strange, deep and normal and higher all at once, and the demon below him _screeches_ , sharp and loud as he claws faster, frantic.

“If you send me back you’ll go back too!” the demon shouts, gritting sharp teeth and struggling, kicking at Bellarus’ back, stabbing more blades into his healing wounds. Bellarus doesn’t stop, the black markings in the floor starting to shift and turn and _swirl_ , and the demon _screeches_ again, disappearing in a black wind of twisting blades.

Bellarus stops and the pulsing glow dies down until it disappears as the symbols stop writhing, going still. He pushes himself to his feet and looks around, then over at Steve. The red of his eyes shrinks back to his irises, slitted pupils stretching back into existence in the centers.

Steve stares at him, hand over his stomach and the other gripping his shield strap so tight he’s vaguely surprised it hasn’t broken. He hears a _thud_ to his back left and glances over, sees Sam sitting on the floor with his head in his hands and- sympathizes. He kind of wants to do the same thing. This is...out of his depth. This is _way_ out of his depth.

And he didn’t believe Bellarus, not really, about demons, not...

Steve tries to swallow past his bone dry throat and asks Bellarus roughly, “Are you okay?”

Bellarus tilts his head a little, like a bird, and then between one blink and the next he’s standing a foot in front of Steve, making him jump. Bellarus leans close and Steve leans back a little, noses almost touching as Bellarus stares at him, the red of his eyes...shifting. It shifts between purple, red, blue, then back to red again.

“Bellarus…?” Steve asks, fingers curling tighter around his shield strap.

Bellarus cocks his head again and it’s-

“Who are you?” Steve asks, because he’s... _not_ Bellarus, is he? Something about him is different, just like something about Bellarus was different from Bucky from the moment he sunk to his knee in front of Steve. Something’s _off_.

Bellarus- or not-Bellarus leans closer, shifting to the side until Steve can’t see his eyes anymore, the radiated cold from his not-quite-touching cheek making Steve shiver. “ _Winter_ ,” not-Bellarus whispers in his ear, breath as cold as frost, and then he slowly pulls back. Steve stares for a moment, mind blank (for the second time).

He shakes himself out of it and turns to crouch down next to Sam, focusing on what he _can_ process, reaching out slow and gripping Sam’s shoulder again. Sam flinches, but doesn’t pull away, so Steve tightens his grip a little. “Sam,” he says, as low and calm as he can, “He’s gone, and we need to get out of here. I promise you won’t we don’t do anything after we’re out, but we need to check the base and blow this place. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

It takes a long couple minutes, but then Steve sees Sam take a long breath in, hold it for ten seconds, and let it out slow. He does it again, then one more time before lifting his head and giving Steve a nod. His eyes are still a little unfocused, but he’s focused enough for Steve to give him a hand up before looking over and up at where the platform used to be, trying to judge how to scale it and get them all out of here. It’s easier to focus on that, something familiar, than... _God, everything else_.

“Bellar- Winter,” Steve corrects himself, turning to him, red eyes already on him. There’s so many damn names. “Can you help us get out of here?” His wounds seem to be healing amazingly fast, most of his torso already complete again and clothes slowly covering it over, black blood reversing its path back into his body.

Bellaru- _Winter_ steps forward, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist and one around Sam’s, who flinches again, but it’s smaller than last time, at least. Winter shifts and then they’re-

Steve grips Winter’s shoulder, eyes wide as he watches the floor drop away. A moment later and they’re touching down on the floor above, almost as gently as a feather. Sam stumbles away and squeezes his eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths, and Steve steps away to look out at the cavern while he gives a short shake of his head, trying to focus past the way his mind keeps trying to shut off. He reaches into his belt and pulls out a few bombs, tossing them down inside before looking back at the others, Winter’s- eyes focused on him again. Winter starts leaning close and Steve leans back, skirting around him to grip Sam’s shoulder and gently nudge him forward.

“Let’s go,” Steve says, glancing back at Bel- Winter to make sure he follows.

Steve almost automatically starts combing the third sublevel once they’re out, choosing to focus on the task. There’s only a few offices on this floor, so he gives Sam some space and clears it himself (the cells included, knocking on each window to make sure all of the creatures are dead) before leading them up to the second sub level. Steve gets halfway down the first hall, quickly scanning through the single file cabinet, when he hears the door opposite across the hall open, leaning back to take a look. He sees Sam rifling through it and goes back to his own investigation, leaving him to it.

Together, they comb the rest of the building. Sam starts looking sick again when they reach the second floor above ground level where Bellarus had apparently gone, bodies strewn everywhere and blood splattered all over the floor, ceiling, and walls, holes roughly the size of the chains that hang around him in various locations (on the bodies _and_ the hall). Steve does the rest of the floor himself, then the next two, carting the files they deemed worth taking under an arm. All of the laptops were either locked or didn’t have any files on them worth taking and risking the tracking, so they left them. They head out and back to their duffel bags, both of them taking big lungfuls of clean air as soon as they exit out from the shadow of the building. It’s still bright and sunny outside, jarring, like stepping out into a completely different world, but it looks like there’s darker clouds coming in from the right side of the horizon.

Steve sets the files down in the field of yellow and violet flowers and changes quickly while Sam does the same, both of them fumbling a little with their latches and buckles and zippers. After he’s back in jeans and a t-shirt and jacket and boots, Steve stuffs the files in various parts of his duffel and zips it all up, looking over at Sam. “You ready?”

Sam drags his eyes over and nods slowly, then starts walking. Steve and Winter follow for half a mile, and then Steve presses the detonator. The base goes up in smoke behind them and Steve glances back briefly as they keep walking.

Steve looks over at...Winter, who’s looking around, and gestures at him a little. “Do you still have the sunglasses?” _Does he know what I’m talking about?_

Winter’s red eyes snap over and then he looks down at himself, patting at his clothes which seem to have mended the rest of the way, along with his body. Even the scar that was on his neck and cheek seems to have disappeared. Steve’s amazed the _hat_ stayed on. Winter pulls the glasses out of one of his pockets and slips them on, looking over at Steve and tilting his head. Steve gives him a thumbs up, feeling ridiculous immediately after he does it, and Winter’s head tilts further before he raises his own hand and slowly gives a thumbs back. His face tilts down like he’s studying it.

Steve stares for a moment before dragging his eyes away, gaze inevitably drifting back. “So you’re not...Bellarus, or Bucky, right?” he asks slowly.

Winter shakes his head, face turning toward him.

Steve frowns, brows drawing together. “What...happened to them? Do you know?”

Winter nods, then tilts his head to the side, face angling up to the sky. Steve tilts his head back and looks up too, before he realizes that might not actually mean anything. He drops his head back down.

Bucky’s M.I.A., Bellarus has...gone somewhere, somehow, or changed, there’s another demon involved and another...Master, demons are _real_ , and that’s...all too much to process right now. He focuses on Sam.

“We’ll get a room at the next town,” Steve says, “Take a break for a few days.” He sees Sam nod a little and the guilt twists in his chest with a vengeance. “Do you need anything, Sam?”

Sam doesn’t say anything for a while, long enough that Steve decides to let it go, but then he says, quietly, “Just some space and time.”

Steve’s eyes immediately jump back to him. “Okay,” he returns quickly, “Whatever you need.”

Sam’s quiet for the next while, and Steve digs a file out to start looking through it so he doesn’t get swallowed up into his own head. There’s enough there that he’s going to have nightmares again tonight, he can feel it.

\--

It starts raining just after they check into a roadside inn, a two story building with 10 rooms. They get one on a first floor corner, shuffling in and closing the rickety door behind them. Steve locks it, even though that wouldn’t actually do much, pushes a small table in front of it and then drops his duffel on the bed nearest the window, hears Sam drop his own behind him. He turns to look and watches Sam sit down and then curl up on the bed, boots and all, back to the window and face to the wall. Steve hesitates, stomach twisting, but swallows the budding words down and turns to his own bed.

Winter hovers near the door for a minute before drifting over to the window at the end of Steve’s bed, looking outside. The rain starts hitting the glass, light taps at first, before it starts coming down hard enough for Steve to hear it against the wall. It’s still too light to disturb Sam (he hopes), but it’s ambience enough for him.

He turns his attention to his duffel, unzipping it and pulling the next file out as he turns and takes a seat on the bed, scooting back until his back rests against the wall. He doesn’t think about the...demon from earlier, the Hydra base, the terrified agent, the scientists, or Bucky- Bellarus- whoever is standing next to the window, just focuses on the paper crinkling softly in his hands and the stark black words and red stamp on the page.

\--

Steve jerks awake with a sharp gasp, eyes darting around wildly looking for blades _, screams_ , _Bucky_ -

They land on Bucky standing by the window, rain still beating against it, then jump over to the neighbouring bed at the sound of a gasp, quickly adjusting to the dark. Sam’s curled up tight, but his body slowly relaxes as his breathing tempers out, ribcage rising and falling slower, and Steve pulls in a breath and holds it, forcing it out slow to try and do the same. He looks back over at Buck- Bellarus. No- that’s not...right. Winter?

Steve can make out a dim, red glow where his eyes would be in the darkest corner just past the window, body invisible in the pitch save for the red of his eyes, and it sends a shiver down his spine. He keeps looking, staring, emotions bubbling up from the depths of his stomach.

He can’t avoid his emotions forever, he knows he can’t, but- God, where does he even _start_. Even starting at the beginning, it’s still finding out Hydra has had Bucky this whole time, and then that Bucky isn’t _Bucky_ , and Bucky’s a _demon_ , an actual- Being _told_ that and then actually _seeing_ it are-...

His ma used to take him to mass every Sunday she could manage it. The preacher would talk of sins and angels and redemption, of sinners and penance and God’s Wrath. Steve would sit and listen, bow his head when his ma did, sing along to the songs after getting lost in the book, until he had them memorized, until the routine was embedded in his mind as much as his body. He can still remember the words, feel their sounds trace his tongue and lips, the shape of his mouth, come out like gospel into the air of the righteous and the faithful. He remembers it all, or most of it, remembers what it feels like to just go along with it, then to believe, and then to lose faith in the battlefield of slaughtered innocents, the stench of their decaying or burning corpses like gasoline in the air, match already struck by the ideals of a madman trying to spread his power across the world.

But in the face of his best friend, or the body of him, eyes glowing a dim red behind sunglasses in the darkest corner of their rented room, all that...feels insignificant. What good are hymns and the words of a righteous preacher in the face of this? His best friend turned slave turned demon, bound to him as sure as he was bound to Hydra. _God_ , Steve thinks, _What good are words in the face of unbearable heartbreak_.

Steve’s breath hitches and he covers his mouth with a hand, the tears building too fast for him to stop and spilling over before he realizes it. His breath hitches again and the unending red stare of Bucky’s eyes blurs with the overflow of his tears. He’s still terrifying, still makes Steve’s heart shudder and his chest cold, a shiver alight along his spine, and the horror finally sinks in, seeing _Bucky_ this way, but not seeing Bucky in his own _body_.

He has loved Bucky since he was a boy, the body spreading warmth of a child, the toe curling butterflies of a teenager, the heart buoying, then wrenching ache of an adult. He has loved Bucky in almost every way, from when Bucky was a grinning, gap toothed child to a handsome, charming adult, to a war ragged prisoner of enemies, both foreign and home. He has loved Bucky from five to twenty-nine, and through everything in between. Even now, Steve’s heart twists as he sobs quietly into his palm, tears running down the seams of where his hand meets his mouth, down to his jaw and down the length of his throat, absorbed like spilt beer into the collar of his shirt. He has loved Bucky. He still loves Bucky, even if Steve’s not sure he’s still in there, the beloved vessel of his soul.

The questions start to bubble up again, through the horror shredding Steve’s stomach to pieces and the heartbreak and ache twisting his heart in a powerful fist. He can’t speak, can barely breathe, trying to keep his sobs quiet as they wrack his body. He pulls his knees up and curls in on himself, closing his blurry eyes on Bucky’s black form only to open them and stare again. Even terrifying, horrifying, Steve can’t look away from him.

After five minutes, ten, fifteen, the sobs start to quiet and the tears start to slow. They still spill over, out of his burning eyes, down the sides of his red, sniffling nose, but it’s enough that he can pull in breaths and swallow down his dry throat, wet it so he can speak.

“Do you know me?” he asks, wiping at his cheeks with his hand, quiet and rough like he’s been walking the desert for seventy years instead of being immobile in ice, both as unforgiving and dry.

The red eyes tilt like Bucky- Winter? Has cocked his head again. “You’re Steve,” he returns, almost a whisper of breath across the dark spaces between them. Steve could swear he feels the ice chill of it travel the distance too. The rain hits the roof another story above their heads, a faint drum, hits the window in a quiet patter, quieter than earlier. Steve has to strain to hear him over the sounds, but he does, like a dog listening for a master’s whistle, desperate and ready.

“Do you know where Bucky is?” he tries, has to swallow again to get it out. The eyes move like a nod, like he had earlier, and Steve tries to steel himself. “Where is he?” He holds his breath, doesn’t want to risk missing the answer, if there is one.

The eyes flicker purple briefly and then turn to look out the window. “Safe,” comes the whisper, and Steve lets the breath out slow.

“ _Where?_ ” he asks, _begs_. He’s not above begging for Bucky, he’s not above anything.

The eyes flicker purple again, which makes Steve’s eyebrows twitch closer together, before turning blue-green, then back to red. Steve thinks he might be-

“Can’t answer,” Winter whispers, eyes shifting like he’s shaking his head again, “Forbidden.”

“‘Forbidden’?” Steve asks, wracking his brain. His thoughts are slow and scattered, wispy things just out of his reach, but he manages to grab one. “By Hydra?”

The eyes dip in a nod and Steve pulls in another breath.

 _Hydra didn’t want Bucky_ , he thinks hollowly. What did they do to him? And with the hope fluttering dangerously back up in his chest, _He’s still **alive** , but **where is he?**_

He focuses, attention pulling together from scattered corners as the pieces start aligning, a dog with a bone, a desperate man with a jumbled puzzle. He is both of those things, so many things. “How many are you?” he asks slowly, testing a...theory, the bare bones of one, a whisper of a thought that makes his stomach roll. Maybe getting answers is a matter of asking the right questions.

The eyes shift back to him, faster than before, then flicker purple again behind the sunglasses. “Three,” comes the answer, somehow both a whisper and spoken at once. It’s jarring to hear, something Steve’s mind can’t quite process because it’s- it should be impossible, but this whole mission is impossible. His life is impossible. It makes a horrible kind of sense that Bucky’s would be too, Bucky, who never let him go through things alone.

 _Three_.

Steve stares at him and Winter stares back, and Steve tries to make the pieces fit.

One: Bellarus.

Two: Winter.

Three: _Bucky?_


	5. I know something you don't know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning: There is some non-con in this chapter and there will be more in the next two.**  
>  I'm not as ahead with these chapters as I'd like to be but the next one is done and I don't want to keep you guys waiting so here this one is. I had an uncomfortable day today and have another one scheduled not too far from now and I want to take my mind off it.  
> Thank you again to Resin for taking the time to look these over. I really appreciate it. <333

“Is the third one Bucky?” Steve asks quickly, rushing out, “No! Stop!” when Winter’s eyes flare bright like Bellarus’ had. The red dims back down and Steve lets out a shaky breath, eyes darting over to Sam. He’s sitting up, the sheets rustling softly beneath him in the dark. Steve feels another stab of guilt, even though he’s not sure if Sam’s actually been asleep this whole time.

“Forbidden,” Winter whispers, sounds like he’s curling in on himself, like he’s waiting to be punished-

“Okay,” Steve forces out, pulls in a breath and lets it out with another, “ _Okay_.” It’s not okay, but he can’t get his answers the direct way, and he _needs_ answers.

“Personality disorder,” Sam rumbles, sleep low and deep like a tiger in the cage of their room when paired with the distant thunder that cracks outside. Another shudder tingles down Steve’s spine.

“What?” he asks.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Sam answers, “That’s what it would be called if he were human. As is? I don’t know if it still applies. It’s more than one personality in a body. It’s brought on by severe trauma, which he qualifies for, but…”

But Bucky’s- or whoever they are in there, aren’t human, goes unsaid.

Steve takes in a slow, shaky breath and tries to think.

Hydra made Bucky, or whoever, forget the missions they used him on, but if he can answer that there’s three of them inside him, that’s not a mission, that’s...something else. Winter and Bellarus can’t answer about Bucky directly, but maybe…

“The third one is safe?” Steve asks, hope fluttering in his chest and heart in his throat. The eyes dip again and then Steve recoils at the sudden click and flash of light in the room, blinking quickly through stinging eyes. Sam sets the flashlight on his bed and points it towards the wall while Steve’s eyes adjust.

Winter’s standing in the darkest corner like a wraith, eyes still glowing dimly and none of his edges reflecting the light, but absorbing it. He’s a black silhouette against the faint glow of the flashlight light against the wall behind him, eerily still and silent, not even the sound of him breathing. A chill creeps up Steve’s spine and he crosses his arms over his chest, sees Sam pull a blanket over his lap out of the corner of his eye. It feels colder, but maybe that’s just the rain still hitting the building outside, cocooning them in the dark and cold.

Winter nods and Steve’s attention focuses again. He asked a question, right.

“Is the third one...older than you?” he tries, words coming slow while he tries to think them through. It’s hard when all he wants to do is demand _where is he? How is he? How do I get him **back? Please tell me how do I save him?**_

Winter nods slowly and Steve sucks in a quiet breath, fingers curling against his jacket.

“Is the third one older than Bellarus?” he asks.

Winter nods again and Steve’s brow furrows a little while he tries to hold back that swell of hope in his chest. It’s dangerous, like a viper bite to the heart. It flaps its wings against his ribcage anyway.

“Are you older than Bellarus?” he asks next.

Winter slowly shakes his head, dark bangs swaying gently with it, black in the corner of the room, and Steve worries his lower lip in thought.

So the third personality is the oldest, and _might_ be Bucky. Bellarus is older than Winter and his eyes are different colors. But what does the purple mean? That they’re...mixing?

“Do the three of you...communicate somehow? Inside?” Steve tries, heart beating faster as hope’s wings beat harder against his bones.

Winter’s eyes flash purple and he’s still for a long minute, then gives a slow nod.

“Can you talk to the third-”

The side of the building _explodes_ inwards in a cloud of cement dust and shattered glass, deafening, and Steve moves for his shield, Sam diving for his guns almost as fast. Winter’s standing in front of Steve between him and Sam when he turns back around, the corner where he’d been standing and the window gone, rain soaking into the dissipating dust and debris. Thunder cracks hard, a deep rumble across the sky followed by a flare of bright light, and Steve sees something odd shaped and black yank back out into the night. The papers in the open file rustle and fly away out of the cream colored folder and Steve spares a mournful thought for them before he hears a laugh and his eyes snap forward.

“Sorry to interrupt the slumber party, but I got orders,” comes the demon’s voice from earlier- Rumlow, ember orange eyes materializing in the dark outside just past the giant hole in the wall, like a ghost in the night. Steve tightens his grip on his shield straps and the eyes shift to him, then curve like crescents. “You’ve got an appointment,” Rumlow says, smile in his voice, then the eyes are gone and there’s a black blade at Steve’s neck and an arm wrapped around his waist. He’s sucked backwards into black nothing like he weighs less than a white dove, Winter’s red eyes shifting purple as he bares his sharp teeth-

Steve manages to get out a, “ _Protect Sam!_ ” before the world goes black. Because it’s the least he can do, if he never sees another sunrise again.

\--

The black void closes up and Steve is just-... _gone_.

The rain pelts against the old wood floor, wind spraying it into the room and soaking into the back of Sam’s clothes while it soaks into the few Hydra papers still scattered across the room. Winter lets out an impossible, three toned _growl_ and Sam’s eyes snap over out of his trance. “Can you find him?”

Winter- no, his eyes are cyan again - Bellarus stalks over, raising a hand to where the void was. He growls again, jerking his arm down in a sharp motion. “It’s sealed.”

“What does that mean for Steve?” Sam asks, brows lowered.

Bellarus’ eyes flare molten purple and he growls out, “ _Hunt_.” His slitted pupils expand until they’re black orbs threatening to swallow all the color, standing still as a statue while the chains beneath his cloak drift up, floating around him like they’re on a breeze.

\-----

Steve jerks awake with a hard hit to his cheek, head whipping to the side with a sharp grunt and jaw and cheek stinging like he got hit with a crowbar. He squeezes his eyes shut and then blinks them open rapid fire, squinting against the light. He tries shifting, grunting quietly again when his wrists grind together, bound by something heavy and metal. He slowly lifts his head and looks around- jerking back and hitting his head against the metal pillar behind him when his eyes meet the glowing orange ones inches from his face. He has to look up a smidge to see the demon’s growing smirk, upside down like a rictus grin.

“Well, well, look who’s awake,” Rumlow says, and Steve can’t help his eyes darting up briefly, taking him in. He’s...floating in the air, upside down, still as a statue, black hair hanging down towards Steve’s lap. Steve grimaces a little at the smell of Rumlow’s breath just barely ghosting across his mouth, like brimstone and the burning, bombed out buildings from the war.

Rumlow cocks his head and then turns down like a clock hand, black boots hovering briefly before coming to rest down on the floor between Steve’s thighs. Steve resists drawing them together, drawing his knees up, and holds still, keeps the backs of them flat against the cement floor. He darts a quick look around, but the room is empty, gray cement, cracked here and there but not as old as some of the buildings he’s seen, but not shining new like the Triskelion either.

He looks back up at Rumlow. “Why am I- What does your master want?” he corrects. Someone’s controlling Rumlow, or at least giving him orders, he thinks. _Like Hydra did Bucky_.

“Wants his precious _toy_ back,” Rumlow answers with a sneer, the edge of his lips curving back up into a smirk like he can’t decide if he hates the idea or loves it, but Steve hates it, fingers curling against the metal at his back.

“Your master is Hydra,” he says, and Rumlow’s smirk sharpens, eyebrows curving up a smidge.

“Perceptive,” he purrs, and Steve forces himself not to shift as Rumlow crouches down, feels vulnerable at the way his legs are spread around Rumlow, the lack of armor protecting his chest and stomach.

He feels a...a shiver almost against the back of his brain, past his skull and Steve can’t help but jerk a little, eyes widening as something seems to _shimmer_ across his vision. Rumlow’s smirk widens, stretches past a human mouth and he leans back a little, eyes shifting between Steve’s own. “There you are, _Bellarus_ ,” he says mockingly.

A two toned growl comes out of Steve’s throat and he jerks- no, doesn’t jerk, doesn’t move, body nearly as still as Rumlow’s save for the beat of his heart rocking him infinitesimally where Rumlow’s doesn’t. Does he even _have_ one in all that black blood and glowing embers Steve saw bare to the world in the cavern?

 _Does Bucky?_ his mind whispers.

 _Quiet_ , Bellarus whispers sharply back inside his own head, and Steve’s body doesn’t flinch like he wants to. It’s starting to feel like his eyes are burning, not like fire, but like he’s been crying, irritation wrapped around the edges.

 _My eyes are glowing_ , Steve thinks distantly, _Like Bellarus’?_

A sharp nailed finger trails down his cheek and Steve’s attention snaps back forward to Rumlow’s smirking face. 

“ _Bellarus_ ,” Rumlow croons, leaning closer. He draws the tip of his nose up Steve’s cheek and Steve wants to recoil from the touch and the heat that sinks into his skin, tries to fight the way his body remains stiff and still until Bellarus hisses at him in his head again. Rumlow’s sharp teeth nip down the side of his neck, hot breath rolling across his skin like volcanic smoke and steam, and Steve wants to jerk, wants to punch him across the face, wants to get _away_. A growl curls out of his throat, louder this time, and Rumlow laughs, low and quiet.

“Can’t do this in the Other,” Rumlow purrs. 

_The Other?_ Steve thinks, _The place Bellarus came from. Where they **both** came from?_

Rumlow’s other hand slides up his thigh and Steve can feel his sharp nails dragging over the denim of his jeans until Rumlow’s hand presses firmly against his cock, the growl in Steve’s throat stuttering on the choking sound he makes, manages to get through. “Well, we could,” Rumlow drawls lighter, draws his hand up Steve’s stomach, underneath his shirt, so warm it almost feels like a brand blazing across his skin. 

Another growl comes out of Steve’s throat, harder, louder than the last, and Rumlow just laughs, drags his nails down, pressing and drawing blood in five lines from Steve’s chest to stomach. “He’s a pretty one,” Rumlow says low against the side of Steve’s neck, pressed there like a giant cat trying to catch a scent. Steve feels something wet slide up to just beneath his ear, feels it _extend_ and curl behind it, feels sharp teeth nip at his earlobe and his stomach rolls while his heartbeat picks up. 

_He smells like fire_ , Steve thinks distantly, like ash and decimation. _Is he going to decimate me?_

Bellarus is silent.

“Cat got your tongue?” Rumlow taunts, slowly pulling back and dragging the tip of his nose across Steve’s cheek until Steve can see his eyes again, feels his own brows lower while his fingers curl tight into fists, sweat starting to dot his brow.

“ _What do you want?_ ” Bellarus growls out of Steve’s throat, a cold sensation sweeping through his whole body, making the tips of his fingers and toes prickle. Rumlow’s smirk hardens, shrinks a little, and then Steve finally notices the chains drifting out of the corners of his eyes, ends broken and pieces drifting.

“‘Want’?” Rumlow asks, slides his hand down a little further and shifts it, nails sinking down below the top of Steve’s pants. Steve can’t shudder at the way they feel, light and sharp against vulnerable skin. “How do you know this isn’t an order?” He leans close and presses his mouth to Steve’s, hard and firm and rough, demanding, and Steve wants to _gag_. The demon’s lips are hot, worse than his hands, and his breath tastes like burning rubble. Rumlow pulls back with a sharp nip and Steve feels warmth slide down his chin, knows his blood drops and hits his shirt and stains it red above his heart. “We’ve both had masters that like that,” Rumlow taunts, voice a low timber, rough like the trees out in the mountain forests, burning under wildfire. 

His hand pushes lower and Steve feels hot fingers curl around his cock, wants to close his legs, shift, _something_ , but Bellarus keeps him still, even though Steve can feel a freezing hum starting up under his skin, electric and sharp like lightning blazing across the sky. It doesn’t feel good. _None of this feels good_.

The fingers stroke, rub, and Steve’s ashamed to feel his body respond, his nipples harden when Rumlow lowers his head and breathes fire against his chest, his cock harden a little when a burning finger presses roughly up under the head. He makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

 _He wants **you**_ , Steve realizes somewhere far away. Bellarus is still quiet in his head, but the chains stop moving in his periphery, still as poised daggers. Why haven’t they done anything yet? _Do you **want** him to do this?_ Steve demands, can’t help the hint of _frantic_ underneath the thought.

Steve’s breathing picks up in his head, even if it can’t in his body, and he curls up, in some way or another, even if he can’t physically do it. He feels like a ball, small and defenseless in a vast, black nothingness, and that hum rises, wraps him up in itself, feels like static electricity all across his- _him_.

A hand wraps around his knee and he’s yanked sharply down, attention snapping back to the outside world as his shoulders wrench from the angle. His teeth don’t grit, his fingers don’t curl, but his throat growls again, low and menacing.

“Always playing hard to get,” Rumlow growls back, low tone gone and eyes sharp as they stare down at him. Then he smirks again, lower but just as sharp as his eyes, fingers releasing Steve’s cock and sliding down between his cheeks-

Steve’s mind goes blank at the strange press against his- him, and the chains dart forward. Steve thinks they’ll pierce Rumlow but they wrap around _him_ instead, like a tug-of-war, suffocating. Rumlow barks a sharp laugh, and then it cuts off as his eyes widen a fraction.

Brown hair lengthens and drifts about Steve’s face like he’s in the water, he feels his teeth sharpen as that hum spikes all over, wraps him up in its strange shapes and freezing, prickling needles. He feels like his breath should be coming out in fogging puffs in the room he’s so cold, so unbearably _cold_ , like the Valkyrie- 

Steve’s world shrinks and he floats in black as all sensation cuts out, looking through two holes like binoculars, like his eyes are viewing windows rather than his own. He can’t think about it, it’s too much, it’s _all_ too much _God what has he done what has he gotten into what is_ -

The chains dart and he hears a shriek, a scream, can’t feel his body anymore but his vision jerks as Rumlow thrashes and his own body gets assaulted with it, chains through Rumlow’s eyes that keep pushing in but never come out the back of his skull. Rumlow thrashes again, spikes darting out of his skin and forward-

And then there’s nothing, just black. There’s a distant sound, like rain and thunder, and then it comes into focus all at once and Steve stumbles hard to wet floorboards, wants to scream for all that he feels like a newborn, skin so sensitive even the air burns and eyes hot coals in his head, freezing and burning somehow at the same time. He does scream, he thinks, feels his throat vibrate but doesn’t hear it, doesn’t feel the sound tear up his insides, and he presses his palms to his eyes, jerking hard away from hands on his shoulders that feel too heavy too sharp _too too too_ and running into something soft and hard with one of them, smelling too much like _water_ and _cloth_. Too much, _it’s too much,_ his senses overloaded and hyperfocused-

Something zips across the base of his mind and Steve’s world goes black for the second time. He’s not there to feel the chains wrap around him, coil quick and gentle, lift him to settle him gently on the driest part of the bed.

\-----

Steve stirs later, blinks his eyes open and jerks up to sitting with a strangled gasp, shuddering when the cold finally registers, sinking through his skin to meet the remnants still in his bones. He’s quick to find the gaping hole in their room from- 

He shudders, dragging his eyes around. It’s stopped raining, he notes absently. Something moves in his periphery and he flinches, head whipping around- Steve lets out a slow breath when he realizes it’s _Sam_ , relaxing. His eyes slide down, then catch on the black- cloak? Pooled in his lap, staring when it finally clicks that it’s Bellarus’.

“Hey,” Sam says quietly, crouching down next to the bed, and Steve drags his eyes over, not sure how to feel about the cloak being in his lap, draped on him like a blanket, “How are you holding up?”

Steve shakes his head slowly, and then it all comes crashing back and he squeezes his eyes shut with a sharp shake of his head, pulling his knees up. The heat is gone, he knows, but he can practically feel it again, radiating from _Rumlow_ like an open fire, feel the brands of his hands on his stomach, his cock, between-

The freezing cold is there too, deep, where the heat was on the surface. He can’t seem to shake it, can’t make it dissipate faster than it is, slow as icebergs grinding together as they come apart.

Steve gives his head another sharp shake, realizes he’s wrapped his arms around himself and slowly makes himself unwind them. He risks a glance over at Sam, whose gaze is gentler, but Steve doesn’t see pity there and that helps.

“Bellarus?” Steve asks, clearing his throat quietly when it comes out rough like he’s been sleeping for- How long has he been asleep? What happened? He felt a- 

Steve’s eyes widen a little and then his face screws up. 

Bellarus put him to sleep, somehow, just like he’d entered Steve’s head, _all_ of him in ways only the cold from plunging the Valkyrie in the water had, intimate and unfeeling in its determination to freeze him over.

Steve shivers and wraps his arms around himself again.

Sam looks over at the hole in the wall and Steve drags his eyes over too. They catch on a smaller hole nearby and that makes Steve look around again, really take in the room this time. 

There’s long and short gashes, holes in all the walls, the floor, even the ceiling, like-

“He lashed out for some reason,” Sam explains quietly, eyes on him when Steve’s snap back, “Did a lot of growling while those eyes of his flashed different colors and the chains whipped around the room like an angry cat.” Steve looks Sam over, feels guilt kick him hard in his numb ribs for not making sure he was okay first, and relaxes a little when he doesn’t see any injuries.

Steve pauses, leaning back and looking down at his chest. He pulls his red stained shirt up with hot-cold hands, swallows at the streaks of it down the white, and then stills when he finds his skin unmarred beneath, flesh smooth. He swallows again and looks up, then over at Sam.

“Where are-...” he trails off quietly.

“Said he ‘gave them to an atheist in Montana’,” Sam answers, pushing himself up with a sigh. He moves over and sits on the edge of the other bed. “He went outside after that,” he adds, nodding his head towards the hole in the wall. Steve looks over, but can’t see anything, just the gray of early morning and the fields upon fields of wet violet and yellow flowers.

Steve stares out at them, gaze going unfocused as his thoughts nip like Rumlow’s teeth had, fingers spasming a little on his coat sleeves and he curls them, grips tight while he tries to make it through the riptide. He can still feel hands, nails, _presses_ that make him draw his knees up tighter, Rumlow’s _tongue_ on his neck, behind his ear. The only thing that feels good, that gives him a sick sort of pleasure is the hope that Rumlow taking him _was_ an order, and that losing him means Rumlow fucked up, that he’ll be made to scream like Bellarus had. And Steve doesn’t think his master cares if he’s in pain, won’t put a stop to it as quick as Steve had.

Steve grits his teeth, relishes the sensation, the feeling that he _can_ grit his teeth under his own power, and curls his fingers a little tighter over his biceps, brows drawn low.

He’s not sure how long he stares out into the fields, tossed and turned by memories, sensations, guilt, curled up tight in on himself, being able to move his own body again, but a black shape steps into the hole in the wall and Steve can’t help his hard flinch, attention snapping into focus on- Red eyes. Winter. Winter looks at Steve, then the floor, then over at the wall, stopped just inside the hole almost like he’s unsure, or waiting, or both. Steve becomes acutely aware of the cloak still on his lap. 

None of them say anything for what feels like five minutes, ten, then Sam blows out a slow breath. “What now?”

That’s the question, isn’t it.

“We need more information,” Steve says slowly, eyes still focused on Winter. They need more information on Hydra, Rumlow, Winter, _Bellarus_ , whoever. Bellarus saved him, but it doesn’t feel like he did. Steve needs to look through the book again. “Any coordinates come through while I was gone?”

It’s quiet for a moment, then, Sam, “I heard your phone but I didn’t check it. I almost did.” The, _I almost brought Natasha here_ , goes unsaid.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Steve says numbly, feels like his tongue is swollen, useless in his mouth like the rest of him.

“This isn’t on you, Steve,” Sam says, like it’s a fact. Steve’s stomach twists hard.

He reaches over, not taking his eyes off of Winter until he gets his duffel unzipped and has to look down to find and dig his phone out. He taps the screen on, then checks the message. There’s coordinates. The familiarity is a relief.

Steve sits on the bed for another few minutes, closes his eyes for one and then makes himself uncoil from the damp blankets, hates how exposed he feels just standing up. His sense aren’t overstimulated anymore, at least. He almost feels normal, which just makes every memory stand out that much sharper, that much poignant, harder to push down or ignore.

He does a double take when he realizes the cloak is gone, back on Winter, but doesn’t say anything as he gathers his bag, looking over at Sam. Sam looks back.

He should ask Sam if he wants to keep going, if he needs to stop, but Sam just huffs a breath and wordlessly shakes his head, pushing himself to his feet and gathering up his own bag. He doesn’t need an out, Steve thinks. If things become too much, he’ll tell Steve. That’s one of the reasons Steve trusts him so much.

Everyone either pushed Captain America around, tried to maneuver him like a pawn, or gave him whatever he asked for. It was uncomfortable, unnerving. But Sam, Sam tells Steve Rogers like it is, and Steve thinks he will always be grateful for that.

They start walking, Winter shifting aside, practically pressing into the wall as they pass, and Steve doesn’t look at him, can’t, but he knows he follows, even if Steve can’t hear him stepping across the wet, whining floorboards and out into the fields of flowers that seem to stretch on to the sun starting to crest the horizon.


	6. I like the sound of your heartbeat. I’ve been trying, but not enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I know it's been like, a decade. I felt into the sladiver fandom and wrote a. Fairly long story for that pairing that took up some months, then I've been drawing a lot lately and binge watching anime I've been wanting to catch up on for a few years. I think I've cycled back to writing again and have been wanting to work on this lately.
> 
> This chapter was already written, but I was waiting to get chapter 8 started before posting it. I think chapter 7 is mostly done, so I can work on that, and I'm just going to go ahead and post this one now. Thank you for your patience.
> 
> **Warnings: Non-con**

_Hands slide up his chest and he sighs, tilts his head back when one moves warm up his throat, settles there. The heat slowly sinks into his skin as the other moves back down._

_**They’re warm** , Steve thinks distantly, like he’s sitting next to the radiator in his old apartment._

_The bed creaks under him, that faint, high pitched squeal on the end it always used to make when he rested his weight just a little too far on the left. The hand on his throat slowly slides up and he lets his mouth fall open when rough fingerpads drag down his lower lip, pulling in a deep breath when the other hand pushes up under his shirt, goosebumps prickling along his skin as it slides up his stomach._

_“ **Buck** ,” he sighs, feels a weight shift up above him and then teeth nip at the side of his neck. Something in his stomach jumps uncomfortably at that, but it’s-_

_“‘Buck’s not here,” replies a low, rough, mocking voice, and Steve’s eyes snap open as he drops his head back down. He stares up into glowing orange eyes, and then he can smell the smoke and fire, feel the heat slowly searing into his skin as his skin crawls._

_“Rumlow,” he chokes out, freezing, then pushes up, half surprised to find that he **can** , only Rumlow doesn’t move, is as immovable as Steve trying to push against Avengers Tower by himself. “ **Get off** ,” he grits out, tries kicking up and grunts at the pain that spreads up his shin. _

_**This is a dream, right?** he thinks frantically, eyes darting around his old apartment, the wallpaper, the cracked floorboards, everything blurry at the edges. **It shouldn’t hurt that sharply.**_

_His clothes vanish off him and he sucks in a breath, stomach jumping uncomfortably again as his fingers tighten in the black of Rumlow’s shirt. He glares up. “What the hell are you doing?”_

_“Paying you both back,” Rumlow smirks._

_‘Both’? Steve barely has time to think before a hot hand wraps around his cock and he grunts a strangled sound, trying to shove up against Rumlow again. “Stop!” he gets out, shifts his legs and tries pushing his feet against Rumlow’s thighs, his stomach, but he won’t **budge** -_

_“Do you really want me to?” Rumlow purrs, dipping down and breathing fire up the side of his neck. Steve tries to squirm, struggles to get out from under him, but a hand comes down on his stomach and he grunts, can’t move as it presses him to the floor-_

_Floor?_

_Rumlow presses his sharp smirk against the underside of Steve’s ear, tongue extending and curling behind it like it had before. Steve jerks his head to the side at the hot wet slide and darts his eyes around the cement room, and Rumlow’s low laugh caresses the edge of his ear like curling smoke. Rumlow’s hand keeps stroking him, rough and then rougher still for the calluses on it, and Steve’s cock gives a twitch while he grits his teeth, disgust a rolling weight in his stomach_ -

He wakes with a choked gasp and jolts up, overbalancing forward at the lack of resistance until he catches himself while he darts his eyes around. 

Sam’s asleep on the opposite bed. Steve's gaze catches on the darkest corner of the room and he can’t help the shudder that ripples up his spine when he meets red eyes already staring back. Winter doesn’t say anything, but his eyes shift a little like he’s moving. Fidgeting?

“Steve,” he whispers, in Bucky’s voice, and Steve screws his eyes up.

“Stop,” he says, “Stay over there.”

Winter takes back the step he took forward and doesn’t move while Steve tries to slow his breathing, his rapid heart. Steve curls in on himself and presses his forehead to his knees, forces himself to take in a slow breath and holds it for five seconds, ten. He lets it out just as slow, lifting his head to check again that Sam’s still asleep. Steve can’t tell for sure, but his breathing is even and he hasn’t rolled over from where he’s facing the wall.

He used to dream, before the serum, after it, of Bucky’s work worn hands on his body, warming him where he was always just a little too cold except in the summer, and now it’s-

Steve shudders and presses the heels of his palms to his closed eyes, squeezing them shut.

 _It was just a dream_ , he tells himself, _It was just a dream_. He means the one about Rumlow, but maybe he also means…

He can’t bring himself to look up at Winter, but _God_ , he misses Bucky then, so potently he feels like he wants to break out of his body with it, _could_ , could tear at his skin and bones until he’s free of his cage to go straight to Bucky, wherever he is. But at the same time, he’s selfishly, fervently glad Bucky isn’t here to see him, that Steve doesn’t have to feel his concerned gaze sliding over his shoulders, the sides of his face. He couldn’t stand it, he thinks, and the guilt hits him so hard he has to bite his cheek bloody to keep a sound down.

He misses Bucky, _so much_ , like a child lost in the rain searching for his mother, his father, his brother, his best friend, but Steve’s always been a selfish bastard.

\-----

The coordinates Nat sent said Siberia, some place up North in another middle of nowhere area. Steve tries to push the nightmare from last night aside and focuses on keeping good on his word to Sam, so they take their time. He catches Sam looking at him once or twice like Sam’s got his number, but Steve doesn’t push them any faster and Sam doesn’t either. Winter, since his demeanor doesn’t seem like Bellarus’ and Steve can’t see his eyes with the sunglasses on, stays behind them like he’s guarding the rear. Steve doesn’t feel safe, exactly, and his stomach keeps trying to squirm around with the memories he’s trying to push to the fringes of his mind, but logically he knows it’s a good thing, a safer thing. 

It keeps Winter out of his periphery at least, which is a double edged sword all on its own. He can disappear and reappear at will; it’s not exactly comforting.

They walk for a day. Sam takes a couple pictures on his phone of the scenery, the way the sun hits the surrounding trees and flowers once it finally breaches the cloud covered sky, and of a strange, spindly legged spider resting on a rock. He sends the latter to Steve, who sends it to Nat, and she replies back an hour later with a lone: _8)_

Steve’s lips twitch and he pockets his phone.

They stop in a small town half an hour after dusk. Sam rents them another small room while Steve keeps his hat pulled low and a pair of glasses perched on his nose, his gaze focused above the frames. He catches Winter’s head tilt out of the corner of his eye but keeps his own eyes forward, tightening his grip on his duffel strap and following when Sam leads the way to the room, down one hall and then another. Steve’s wary of staying around so many people, can’t force the tension out of his body. He catches it in Sam’s shoulders too, but makes himself keep quiet, and is glad he did when Sam opens the door to their room and flops down on the bed on the right with a long sigh, rolling over and curling up like he’s back home.

They’ve been walking all day and Sam’s just an ordinary man. Steve sets his bag down and digs the Book out, and keeps himself quiet while Sam takes a nap.

\-----

“ _Steve? You okay in there?_ ” Sam’s voice comes through the bathroom door three hours later with a couple knocks, “ _It’s been an hour_.”

Steve ducks his head away from the door and goes back to staring down the toilet lid. He’s been staring at it for the last fifteen minutes. His shower only took three minutes, as quick and perfunctory as he could make it. But he’s gotta go, has had to go, and it took about ten minutes just to talk himself out of turning the shower back on and taking another just so he could use it instead. He’d already shut it off and Sam would hear, Winter would too.

He just- He doesn’t-

He shifts his eyes to the towel around his waist.

He doesn’t want to touch himself. Every time he thinks about it he feels those hands, rough and too-hot. Just showering quickly and putting the towel on had made his stomach roll and an uncomfortable shudder shiver up is spine.

 _It was just a dream_ , Steve tells himself firmly for the tenth time. He grabs the top of the towel and grits his teeth, fingers curling in the material. It was just a dream.

He rips it off and pushes the toilet lid and seat up; the porcelain hits the back hard enough to echo in the tiny bathroom.

\--

Steve can feel eyes on him and tries to keep ignoring them as he skims over the Book page again. None of it’s sticking even though he’s already read it. He found a page about warding, but his stomach keeps squirming, there’s a light sweat building at the base of his spine where it’s pressed against the pillow bunched up against the old headboard, and his heart rate is a little too fast. He can’t _focus_.

God, he’s _nervous_. No, the S.H.I.E.L.D. therapist had called it ‘anxiety’, different from nervousness but similar in feeling.

He doesn’t want to sleep. 

“Good night,” Sam says, casual but a little uncertain, like he doesn’t know what’s wrong, just that something is, or maybe Steve’s projecting. 

Steve can’t help his fingers curling a little tighter against the edges of the book, flinch forced down, and nods. “Good night, Sam,” he returns, glancing over. Sam watches him a second more before rolling over and tucking a hand up under his pillow where his gun is.

“You too, dark and creepy,” Sam adds without looking. Steve glances over at Winter, but snaps his eyes back down to the page when he finds those red eyes still focused on him. Steve reads the page over again, taking another measured breath.

 _I don’t need to sleep_ , he reasons, he doesn’t have to get any tonight if he doesn’t want to, but they’ll reach the base tomorrow and he should be more rested so he’s ready for whatever might happen. If it was just him he wouldn’t, but.

Steve looks over at Sam, the curved bow of his back and the steady rise and fall of his ribcage beneath his gray shirt.

But he owes it to Sam to be as prepared as possible, for _his_ sake if not his own, which means…

Steve closes his eyes, squeezes them shut and then makes himself open them, reading over the page again.

Just this one last page, and then he’ll sleep.

\--

_Steve sucks in a breath as he’s shoved face first into cement, hands coming up to try and brace himself but they’re useless against the strength pushing at him and his cheek ends up pressed to the cold floor instead. A hot hand curves around his hip and runs up his stomach beneath his shirt, and this time Steve can feel the sharp points of nails lightly tracing every curve and dip of his muscles, making him shudder as his stomach tightens and roils. It’s not Bucky._

_**What do you want?** Steve wants to demand, **Why are you doing this?** But he already knows, enough that asking is pointless, and it’s not like Rumlow’s guaranteed to answer. Still, maybe Steve can stall until he’s closer to waking up, somehow. He should be able to wake up if he’s aware he’s in a dream, right? But it’s just... **not happening.** Maybe-_

_“Are you keeping me asleep?” Steve grunts out, biting his cheek hard and holding in a sound when hot fingertips twist his nipple. He hears a huff of breath behind him that might be a laugh, and then the hand disappears and the pressure on his nipple ceases. Steve doesn’t let himself take a relieved breath._

_His clothes disappear and Steve twitches at the sudden heat that presses against his ass between his cheeks, mind blanking out for a second. It’s thick, warm, he notes absently, too warm for a human, too warm even for him. Even his body temperature doesn’t run that high._

_The...cock, because it is one, rubs up between his cheeks and Steve feels his face go hot, stomach rolling uncomfortably. Questions start bubbling up and he tries to filter out the ones that won’t get him anywhere._

_“You want him, don’t you?” he asks, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to focus, “Bellarus, Winter.” **Bucky** , he doesn’t add. The hips against his ass stop moving and then grind again, sharper, rougher._

_“Not the way you’re thinking,” Rumlow’s voice replies from behind him, as rough and low as gravel and smoke, ashes. “We demons, we don’t think the way you humans do.” A pointed grind that shifts Steve forward slightly, face pressing harder into the floor, the cold of it sinking into his cheek and hands a stark contrast to the inhuman heat against his ass. His fingers curl against the cement while he tries to keep his breathing steady. “This? This is just petty icing on the cake,” Rumlow finishes with a smirk in his voice._

_And then something **shoves** into him, blunt and forced and too big, too- _

_Steve makes a ragged, strangled sound against the cement that bounces back up into his face as his eyes squeeze shut, fingers curling tight against the floor. It- Rumlow keeps **pushing** , **keeps going** , and it- Fuck, it **hurts** \- Steve feels something warm slip down from the ring of pain around the intrusion and it stuns him, because this is a dream, he’s bleeding and this is a **dream** -_

_**Bucky** , the younger part of Steve thinks desperately, the scraps of him left over from before the serum, before the war, before he quickly shuts that thought off. He doesn’t want Bucky here, doesn’t want him to see this, doesn’t want Rumlow to do this to- to any of them. To Bellarus. To Winter._

_Rumlow shoves in the last inch with a grunt and Steve’s mind blanks on the sharp pain, on the **toohottoomuch** of Rumlow’s hips against his ass and the backs of his thighs, of his cock **inside** -_

_Rumlow’s hips give a sharp, jerky grind and more blood slides down Steve’s inner thigh with a sharp, burning pain, too hot inside-_

Steve jerks awake with a sharp gasp, frozen for two seconds before he scrambles to get up, struggles with- with sheets and his jacket, _clothes_ , and finally gets to his feet, sprinting for the bathroom. He bangs the door open and then slams it shut as he runs for the toilet, throwing the light on on the way and then the toilet lid up as he drops to his knees-

Bile burns his throat as it comes up his esophagus and Steve squeezes his eyes shut as he chokes on it, coughs and gags and spits, groans quietly at the sharp sting in his nose. He empties his stomach into the bowl while his legs shake and his body trembles, feels porcelain crumble in his shaky grip and shifts his hands to grab more until it stops breaking in his dusty palms.

“ _Steve? Steve!_ ” he hears Sam’s voice through the door, distant and sleep hoarse and vague over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

“It’s nothing!” Steve makes himself call back, forcing most of the tremor out of his voice, hands shaky and loose and weak on the rim of the toilet seat now, “Something just didn’t agree with me. I’m fine! I’ll be out in a minute.”

A pause. Steve’s heart hammers.

“ _If you’re sure_ ,” Sam’s voice replies, a little uncertain.

 _No_.

“Yeah!” Steve makes himself answer. He can’t be sure telling Sam won’t invite Rumlow into _his_ dreams, infect him somehow or instigate Rumlow into torturing Sam too. He’d already targeted Sam once in the cave, tore him down in barely two sentences. Steve doesn’t want that, or worse, happening to Sam again.

Just because it’s a form of torture Steve’s not familiar with, doesn’t mean he can’t handle it.

 _I’ll be fine_ , he thinks, staring down into the toilet bowl. Phantom pain spreads out from between his cheeks and he stiffens, squeezing his eyes shut as porcelain cracks in his hands. 

He swallows. 

**_I’ll be fine_** , he tells himself firmly, and tries to make himself believe it.

\--

Steve reads the book for the rest of the night, avoiding sleep. He goes back to the section about warding, but as soon as he realizes he’ll need Bellarus’ or Winter’s help to do it, he moves on. He won’t bring Bellarus or Winter into it if he can avoid it, but he glances over at Sam.

He looks asleep. Steve looks over at Winter, swallowing again when he meets red eyes. He looks back down at the book and flips back to the warding chapter. “Can you do this for him?” Steve whispers softly, looking back up and jolting to find Winter standing next to his bed, red eyes boring down at him. Steve tries to make himself relax, loosen his grip on the edges of the book, can feel the thick sections of paper dented under his tight grip. “Can you ward him? Protect him from any influence or harm inside and out?” Steve makes himself finish.

Winter’s head dips and Steve takes a breath, relaxing a fraction.

Steve stares up at him, waiting, and Winter stares back. His red eyes shift angle in the dark like he’s tilting his head. “Order?”

Steve blinks then forces himself to swallow down the guilt. “Yes,” he makes himself say, croaks out the words, “I order you to.”

Winter’s eyes flare briefly and Steve looks over when he catches red out of the corner of his eye, a faint glow of it outlining Sam’s sleeping form before fading out like it was never there. Something in Steve loosens and he looks back up.

“I order you to always protect him from any life threatening harm,” he adds, keeping his voice low, guilt twisting his heart in his chest, “If he ever needs it, protect him.”

Winter’s eyes dip and Steve lets his own close briefly, one worry sliding off his shoulders. A hand touches his shoulder with a soft, “Steve, are you-” and Steve jerks, eyes snapping open.

“ _Don’ttouchme_ ,” he blurts a little louder, staring wide eyed up at Winter, “I order you not to touch me.” The hand pulls away like he’s burning and guilt kicks Steve hard in the ribs. He wants to take it back, wants to-

Winter’s gone, back in the corner of the room from one blink to the next, and Steve swallows hard, fingers trembling faintly against the book he’s denting the pages of again. He makes himself take a slow breath, then another, and tries to force himself calm, opens his mouth- 

Nothing comes out. He tries again- Closes it, gritting his teeth.

He can’t get himself to take it back, not yet, but maybe-...

\-----

Steve doesn’t sleep, greets the early morning through their tiny window with weary eyes. Sam stirs first, and Steve closes the Book before making himself get up. He packs it away back in his duffel, makes the bed he didn’t get back to sleep on, and then follows Sam out of the room when they’re all ready, avoiding looking at Winter. They pick up winter gear on their way and just in time, since their surroundings quickly go from a dry winter to a white one. Steve burrows into his fur lined hood, eyes narrowed against the wind blown snow, and keeps his duffel close as they walk, relieved when after half a day, they arrive in a small town, one of the smallest yet. They rent a snow truck to follow the coordinates the rest of the way to the base while Steve tries to avoid the eyes he can feel on the side of his face where Winter’s sat squished between Sam and the door, and the _trapped_ feeling trying to crawl up his spine with the heat in the cab.

Winter’s kept to the order and hasn’t touched him once, but his eyes almost feel like their own physical touch, a cold burn on the side of Steve’s face that makes the back of his hair stand on end a little. It’s different from Rumlow, Steve logically knows it is, but it still makes his stomach squirm uncomfortably and his fingers curl and uncurl in his gloves around the truck’s steering wheel.

When they finally reach it, the base is in an uncomfortably wide open, mountain lined place, covered in snow and freezing, blowing winds that Steve can’t seem to escape. He hates it, hates the way it makes him shiver and shudder in his coat and his heartbeat pick up in his chest and his mind spiral back two years.

He parks the snow truck outside the circle marked on the map they bought since their phones are useless this far out, and Winter’s eyes stay hidden behind his sunglasses as they unload. It’s bright enough here that Steve can’t tell if he’s still Winter or Bellarus the scarce few times Steve looks at him. He catches movement low in his periphery and glances down, watches the ends of Winter’s chains move, just the last few inches, swaying jerkily like tails Steve doesn’t know the signs of, can’t put the thought into trying to figure out right now. He just focuses on getting them into the base.

There don’t seem to be any Hydra agents around, even wildlife nonexistent as they’d scanned the area out the truck windows on their way up. Still, Steve keeps a tight grip on his shield strap and Sam on his guns as they cautiously make their way over to the metal door built into the large outcropping of rock ahead. Him and Sam fiddle with it for a minute, bypass the old lock (and it has to be before Steve woke up, an older model mechanism rusted around the edges and numbers nearly worn off the keypad), and then the door slides open enough for them to get in single file, Steve leading the way as he warily looks around.

It’s dark where the snowlight behind them doesn’t reach, their silhouettes spilling out across smooth cement into the pitch. Steve finds a leaver on the wall nearby and reaches over, shoving it up. Lights slowly flicker on overhead, stretch out and fill the room in a harsher white as the door shuts behind them with a low sucking sound. Steve looks back at Sam where he’s by the door switches and then forward again, taking in the room as they start walking.

There’s not much in the entryway, just four walls, a roof, and a floor. It spreads out and leads off into three halls, the first a long one straight ahead. Steve shares another look with Sam, glances briefly at Winter, and then starts walking down the one on the left.

This base is different, is Steve’s first thought. It’s built more like a facility, or a bunker, or a military base. Everything is spartan, from the blank cement walls, the faded bright yellow paint indicating directions in a language he doesn’t know on the floors, and fire extinguishers and axes, to the blue, paint chipped stair railings and the bare piping overhead. It’s built to withstand things, Steve thinks, war, maybe, or fallout. They pass through bare offices on the first floor, computers older than what he’s familiar with, older than anything he’s seen since coming out of the ice, something he can easily hear Tony calling ‘dinosaurs’ in his head. There’s file cabinets in the offices, a few rooms that are _just_ for files it seems, and Steve makes a mental note to come back to them. Beyond that, there’s bathrooms, but nothing else on this floor. Steve can’t help the feeling in his gut that this is a layered introduction, and that all the secrets are buried further underneath like the last few bases, like Hydra was inside S.H.I.E.L.D.

The second floor seems to be the living area, for whatever whoever built this place considered ‘living’. Each room is a potential cell, heavy steel doors with outside locks sealed in their frames or left open ajar enough to see a plain bed inside with a yellowed mattress, pillow and sheet, a near empty desk in every one they look into. The cafeteria is as minimal as the rest of the floor, steel tables and rows of bench seats covered in a light layer of dust bolted to the floor. The third floor looks exactly the same.

The fourth floor Steve doesn’t wholly understand, or maybe he doesn’t want to. There’s training rooms, gym areas with large floor mats and old workout machines, a medical area, more of both, but they pass a section of plexiglass, Steve’s eyes roaming over and taking in the bare row of beds beyond it, no sheets, just a flat pillow and a flat mattress. He spots a pair of handcuffs hanging off of more than one head post and presses his lips a little harder together, brows drawing close as he tries to figure out what that’s supposed to mean. Nothing good, he’s sure.

The fifth floor has gated sections, similar to a prison. There’s rooms surrounded by steel bars and cage doors, observation rooms connected with more plexiglass. He spots a clipboard or two in some of them, but refrains from looking just yet. They need to sweep the whole base for activity or traps first before they stop.

The sixth floor is different. The ceiling is lower, the halls wider. There’s equipment down here, boxes in what he assumes is storage, all of varying sizes, some worryingly large. But they make note of it and keep going, Sam’s steps quiet at his back right and Winter’s silent. When they pass another room halfway down though Steve comes to a complete stop, eyes slowly widening as he takes it in.

 _The Chair_ , he thinks faintly, eyes locked onto it before they dart to take in the rest. Five glowing, white tanks, steam - or frost, on a second look at the glass - gently wafting down from a mass of tubing and wires at the top. The room opens up into something tall and wide, wires and pipes of all sizes going straight up the walls to the ceiling and down below into the floor. There’s old equipment either side of the Chair and back behind it, an old computer, a tray of lightly dusty, glinting metal tools, a railing, grates in the cement floor. Steve’s eyes land back on the chair though like a magnet, as skeletal as the one in D.C., not innocuous looking at all. 

It’s black, all of it, unlike some of the other one in D.C. It has the same design though, no cushions, cuff locks at the wrists and ankles, the strange, industrial halo attached to the head pieces that can’t cover a full head, not unless a child was sitting in the chair (and Steve’s pondered that, in the twilight of motel rooms, the horrific possibilities he can’t put past Hydra). His eyes dart over to Winter then, once he’s come out of his terrible, transfixed trance, and it’s the first time Steve’s really looked at him longer than a split second all day.

Winter’s staring at it, at least Steve thinks he is, what Steve can see of his expression void, so Steve forces his eyes down to try and read the rest of him. Winter’s dark, sharp nailed fingers are loose, but the last few inches of chains hanging around his ankles are swaying slightly like there’s a breeze, even though there isn’t, just the cold he can feel emanating from further in the room. Steve looks back up, then over at Sam, who drags his own eyes away from Winter to look back, a small line between his brows.

“Any idea what’s in those?” Sam’s low voice breaks the quiet.

 _No_ , Steve thinks, glancing over at Winter and then back at the tubes, _But we need to know_.

He starts walking forward, and has to glance back again to make sure Winter’s silent steps are still following.


End file.
